How Far
by Jaenelle Angelline
Summary: My attempt at fixing the rift Marvel's put in Logan and Jubes's relationship. FINISHED. Dedicated to Megalictis, at the W and J EZBoard! Read, enjoy, review! Thanks!
1. Default Chapter

Chapter 1: Coming Home

Everything was just the way she remembered it.

Jubilee put her bags down on the floor just inside her old room and looked around. It was still the same as she remembered it, although there was a heavy layer of dust on top of her boom box and every other surface. Well, when she was younger she had made it clear that no one was to enter her room to clean it or touch her things, so she supposed she shouldn't feel too upset at the dust.

The boy-band poster over the bed was the same too. And when she opened the drawers, she found that some of her old clothes were still tucked in them, though there was no way she would be able to fit into most of them now.

Ororo bustled into the room, carrying a box of plastic garbage bags. "Put the clothes you don't want in here," she said, "Rogue and I need to go out later, so we will drop them off at the donation center for Kurt's church." She put the box on the bed, sat down herself, and looked around. "Goddess. All that dust. I think I forgot to clean in here the last time we went through."

"It's okay," Jubilee said. "Gives me something to do." She reached for a trash bag and opened the top drawer, starting to toss clothes out. "Oh, wow…was wondering where that shirt had gone…must have forgotten to take it with me when I left…oh, boy, look at this! You'd think with all the mutant powers in the world we'd at least figure out how to keep the spiders and moths out of the drawers!" Ororo laughed and started sorting clothes, putting the ones Jubilee didn't want into the bag.

When the drawers were mostly empty (there were a few oversized t-shirts that would still fit her) she turned her attention to the bags she had brought. After such a long time at college, it was good to be home again, and to be able to go from sharing a room with other girls to having one of her own again. Reaching for the first suitcase, she abruptly changed her mind and reached for the duffel bag again. The first item to come out was Logan's battered old cowboy hat. She had carefully tried to preserve it in the same condition in which he had given it to her so long ago, but there was only so many things that could be done to keep a hat in good condition, and lately, with all the moving around Jubilee had done, it had become somewhat the worse for wear. She ran her fingers caressingly over the curved brim, smiling in tender fondness at the memories she had of the person who had given it to her.

"Well, ya gonna sit there all day lookin' at the hat, or are ya gonna come an' give me a hug?' came a gruff, growly voice from the doorway, She looked up, startled, and saw Logan, leaning against the doorframe and chewing on a toothpick.

"Wolvie!" Jubilee jumped up, the hat flying out of her lap, and ran to hug him with a squeal of delight. "I missed you I missed you I MISSED YOU!" She flung her arms around his neck, distantly noting that she no longer had to reach upward to do that, and squashed him in an enthusiastic hug. Then she reached over, plucked the toothpick from between his teeth, and kissed his cheeks frantically. "I have missed you SO much, you would not BELIEVE how much, oh, Wolvie…" She finally ran out of breath and let him go, stepping back.

Behind Jubilee, Ororo was still sitting on the bed, although her face was pink with suppressed laughter. Logan too, looked uncommonly flushed. He grabbed the toothpick from Jubilee's hand, then settled his cowboy hat back in its accustomed place low over his forehead. "Take it easy, kid, ya only just saw me last summer," but he grinned nevertheless at the happy smile on Jubilee's face. He missed her fiercely, too…but he'd never go slobbering all over her like she just had. He had to preserve his male dignity.

"Yeah, but that was LAST summer," Jubilee exclaimed as she picked up his hat and dusted off the top of her dresser with one hand, making a clean spot on the surface to put Logan's hat on. "That was almost, like, a whole year ago! I haven't seen you since then, can't I miss you?" she reached into her duffel bag and took out a small package. "Here," she said, tossing it to him.

He snatched it out of air before it could hit the floor. "What is it?" he asked, staring at it as though it might bite him.

She rolled her eyes. "It's a present." When he continued to look at it, she grinned. "It's not going to bite, Wolvie, you can open it."

He started to tear at the paper covering it, and Ororo, sensing Jubilee's wish for privacy, picked up the bag of discarded clothes and made a hasty exit, murmuring something about 'donations' as she slipped past Logan in the doorway. He nodded to her as she passed, then turned his attention back to the package.

Inside it was a small gray velvet box. And inside that was a tiny pendant on a bed of cotton. He stared at it. It was a small J etched on a silver dog-tag like charm, plain and unornamented. There was a loop on top just big enough for a chain.

He stared at it for a moment, then looked up at her. "What's this for?"

She smiled brightly at him. "I took a jewelry-making class last semester and I made it for you. It's a friendship charm. They're really popular. You wear the one with my initial on it, and I wear the one with your initial on it. See?" And she tugged the neckline of her t-shirt down to show Logan another dog-tag charm, this time with an L on it, on a silver rope chain around her neck.

"Jubes, ya know I don't wear jewelry," Logan said somewhat haltingly. How was he supposed to tell her he didn't want to wear it, especially since she seemed so proud and happy of it?

"Well, yeah, I know you don't usually, but we're friends, I thought maybe you wouldn't mind wearing it for me?" Jubilee looked at him with that hopeful-puppy look in her eyes he'd come to know, and hate, over the years. Hate, because he never could deny her anything when she had that look in her eyes. "And I made the hole big enough to fit on a regular bead chain like the one you have your dog tags on, so you don't have to get a chain for it, you can wear it beside your other dog tags." She peered at him, finally noticing his look. "I…I thought you'd…like it."

He looked up, jolted out of his dismay at her timid, unsure tone. Hell, he didn't want to wear it, but there was no way he was going to break her heart by telling her so. Not on her first day home. He took the silver charm and opened the fastening on his dog tag chain, and started to slide the charm on. It came to a stop beside the other tags, and he closed the chain and slipped it over his head. It came to rest on his chest, the metal warming almost instantly until it was comfortable. He was surprised at how light it was; he couldn't feel a difference.

Jubilee hugged him happily and commenced unpacking her bags, stuffing clothes into the drawers. Logan shook her head. Not that he was all that neat himself, but apparently, as much as things might have changed since she had left the mansion for the Massachusetts Academy, some things still stayed the same. Like Jubilee's eternal sloppiness. It must be a thing with the younger generation, he mused as he watched her practically dump the contents of her second bag directly into a drawer without blinking an eyelash. Bobby was the same way.

She opened a smaller bag, and took out a couple of pictures. One was of Jubilee and her friends at the Massachusetts Academy; she, Monet, Paige, Everett, Angelo, Mondo, Artie, Leech, and Jono waved from the picture frame. The second one was of a young man with peculiarly wrinkled grayish skin…Angelo, Logan remembered…making a weird face apparently just as Jubilee clicked the picture. She carefully ran a finger across the glass, wiping away a smudge before putting it on top of her dresser, just beside Logan's hat and in front of her makeup and toiletries.

She saw him staring at the picture, and smiled sadly as she looked back at the picture. "It's my favorite. We were playing around with Paige's new camera before the whole…Zero Tolerance…thing began, and Ange just stretched his skin out in weird directions right before I clicked the shutter. I started laughing before I hit the button, that's why the edges are all blurry." Her voice broke, and she brought a hand up to surreptitiously wipe away a tear from the corner of her eye. "I miss him."

"I know," said a new voice, and Logan and Jubilee both jumped. Paige had stopped just outside the door, in the hallway, and she was looking straight at Jubilee. "I miss him too, Jubes." She stepped in, and both girls reached out to hug each other at the same time.

Logan knew they were going to start crying in a minute. And he hated seeing girls, especially Jubilee, cry. He mumbled something that he would never be able to recall later and fled down the hall to his own room, where he walked in and kicked the door shut with his foot before sitting down on his bed.

Pulling the bead chain with his dog tags on it off, he reached for the small silver charm again. She had made it for him, she wore a similar one…and he wore two of his own, so why did he feel so uncomfortable about this? It wasn't that it was uncomfortable to wear, not as though it were a ring or something that would tie her to him for the rest of his life. There was no commitment involved; he was still free, still able to leave when he felt like…and it wasn't for the rest of her life, anyway. She might have returned from college, but maybe she'd want to go to grad school, or get a regular job…and she'd leave the X-Men, and he wouldn't have to worry about it. About her. About what might happen when he wasn't with her.

_Stop that_. He shook his head. He was getting paranoid. Seeing her again had just brought back bad memories. Most of them involved the period of time right after he and Bobby had taken her limp, lifeless body off the cross the damn Church of Humanity had nailed her to. It was also when Angelo had died. He couldn't shake the fear that had gripped him when he'd seen her; fear that, yet again, he'd failed another person who mattered to him, and let her die. Too many women in his life had been like that; he didn't want Jubilee to be one of those women.

The silver charm felt warm from his body heat as he slid it off the chain. If one of his enemies saw the charm, they would know Jubilee was important to him, and would try to use her to get to him. He couldn't put her in that kind of danger. He tucked it back into its box and closed the lid, leaning over to drop it in the top drawer of his night table. Settling the chain over his head, fighting the memory of Jubilee lying much too still on the beds in the medlabs with tubes all over her and heavy bulky bandages on her wrists, he grabbed his hat, shoved his arms (and a new package of cigars) in his jacket, and headed for the garage. As he passed Jubilee's room door, he saw Jubilee and Paige sitting on her bed, with Rogue and Ororo sitting on the floor, and all of them exclaiming over gifts Jubilee had bought for them.

It was good to have her home.


	2. Movie Night

Chapter 2: Movie Night

"Wolvie?"

Jubilee knocked on Logan's door, then waited. There was a time when she would have just tapped and walked in, but she was twenty-three now, and modesty came with age. She waited a few seconds, and when she didn't hear Logan's answer, she knocked again. When there was still no answer, she walked in. No Wolvie.

She thought. It wasn't his night for going out, although lately, in the few weeks since she'd been home he'd been going out a lot more frequently than he used to. A quick look at the dresser top, which was bare of anything except his cowboy hat and his motorcycle helmet, revealed that his helmet was gone. Not that he would actually wear it, but since Scott had started ragging on Logan about the number of traffic violations he'd racked up for not wearing the 'damn thing', as Wolvie put it, he now took it with him. So. He probably had gone out.

She sighed and closed the door, padding down the hallway on slippered feet. There was a horror movie marathon on TV. In past years, they both knew that on horror movie nights, by unspoken agreement, neither one would go out. She'd been checking the channels earlier that day, and found a Friday the 13th movie marathon on one of the premium channels. She'd mentioned it to him at lunch, "Wolvie. Friday the 13th movie marathon's on tonight." He'd responded with a grunt, as he usually did, and she had been certain that they were going to have one of their movie nights. She'd even begged a few bucks off Remy so they could order pizza and sneaked a bag of Emma and Scott's popcorn from the not-so-secret drawer in the kitchen they kept it in. Now here she was, wearing PJ's and her fuzzy slippers, with goodies that he wasn't around to help her eat.

She flopped down disconsolately on the Rec Room couch and stared morosely at the pizza (pepperoni, mushrooms, Italian sausage) she had ordered. All Wolvie's favorites. She stared at the big bowl of popcorn, and felt tears sting her eyes. She hugged the pillow to her chest, ignoring the teenager being slaughtered on the screen, and stared into space.

"Is dat seat taken?" said a smooth voice with a Cajun accent. She looked up to see Remy, standing at the other end of the couch, his red-on-black eyes looking warm and sympathetic. She scrubbed the tears away from her eyes and sat up, tucking her feet under her. "Nope. Go on, sit down."

Remy sat down, looking at the feast snacks spread out in front of Jubilee. She even, he noticed with some surprise, had a longneck sitting on the table in front of her; opened, maybe a few sips missing. He pointed at it, choosing to start the conversation with something not as potentially explosive as her missing movie partner. "Emma not going to be happy to see you drinking dat."

Jubilee said something pithy and anatomically impossible.

Remy hid a grin behind his hand. Logan used to say the same thing when Remy pointed out that their dearly-departed Jean didn't like his drinking. Well, Jubilee couldn't hang around Logan so much without picking up a few of Logan's more…charming…personality traits. He smiled. "Well, no need to have all dat temper wasted on you alone. Mind if I have one?" Corona wasn't his usual beverage, but he'd drunk some with Logan several times, and it wasn't that bad. Jubilee reached down to the floor on her side of the couch and produced another sweating bottle from the six pack next to her, and Remy took it. Then he took the bottle opener she handed him. "Had to get the bottle opener. Wolvie's not here to open them for me." Her voice sounded small and lost.

Ah. Remy took a drink from the bottle, taking a long time to drink very little, thinking about what he was going to say. To Jubilee, first: and then to Logan, later. He knew about their movie nights; everyone in the mansion knew. It had been too much of a ritual for them since Jubilee was thirteen. Jean had had several litters of kittens when she found Logan was letting…nay, inviting…Jubilee to watch R rated movies with him, but that made not a single bit of difference to either Jubilee or Logan. They went on doing whatever they wanted to, and Jean had had to deal with it. He put the bottle down and said carefully, "Logan didn' want to watch wit' you?"

"No," Jubilee said, and sniffled. "I went up to his room and knocked and when he didn't open the door I knocked again and then walked in and he wasn't in there, and I swear I told him there was a horror movie marathon at lunch but maybe he didn't hear me, or…" she scrubbed at her eyes with her hand, but the tears kept coming, and it had nothing at all to do with the girl getting killed on the screen, "or he doesn't want to spend time with me any more." She sniffled again. "He's been avoiding me since I came home. I can count on my fingers and toes the number of times he's talked to me, and his responses are just the usual grunts. I've been thinking and thinking, and I can't think of anything I've done wrong to make him mad at me." She sniffed, and to cover more of her tears she picked up her bottle and took a sip. "I even went and got a pizza with his favorite stuff on it, and his favorite beer, and the extra-salt popcorn from Emma and Scott's secret drawer, and he's not here."

Remy sighed. "Well, _p'tite_, you min' if Remy sit here wit' you? I don' have not'ing else to do right now, an' you look like you could use some company."

Jubilee looked up at him and managed a watery smile. "Sure. But you might want to get a bit more comfortable," indicating his clothes.

He looked down at himself, wet from the rain outside, and gave her a lopsided grin. "Guess Remy better go change, _non_?" he said. "Remy be right back."

A short time later, he was back downstairs, more comfortably attired in a pair of black boxers and a gray tank top. He plunked himself down beside her and draped a thin blanket across the back of the couch, then reached for the pizza box. He sniffed the steam appreciatively, then took out a slice. Jubilee got up out of the depths of the couch and sat up, reaching for a slice, just as Jason commenced slicing up another teenager. Remy grimaced. "You like watching dis?"

Jubilee looked at him and wrinkled her nose as she gave him a wide grin. "Not really, but Wolvie kinda liked me snuggling up to him during the really gory parts, so that's why I watch it with him. Horror isn't really my thing."

Remy eyed the remote. "You goin' to paff Remy if he see what else is on?"

Jubilee started laughing, and choked on her bite of pizza. "No, go ahead," she said, taking a sip of her beer to clear her mouth. She looked at Remy for a moment, both of them remembering the time they had gotten into a fight over control of the TV remote and Jubilee had accidentally paffed both Remy and the remote in the process. Jean had commented later that at least it was only the remote, and not the TV itself.

Remy flicked the channels until they found a Steven Segal action movie that Jubilee hadn't seen before and that Remy was happy with, and they both settled down to make some serious inroads into the pizza, popcorn, and beer.

Logan closed the back door as quietly as possible and tiptoed through the kitchen, heading for the Rec Room downstairs and the six pack of beer he'd seen in the fridge earlier. It was late (or early, depending on which way you looked at it; two in the morning was late for him) and he hoped Jubilee was in bed so he wouldn't have to run into her.

He had heard her tell him about the horror movies; however, in keeping with his new resolution to keep her away from him (for her sake) he had firmly directed his steps away from the Rec Room and headed out the door as soon as he saw her pick up the phone to order the pizza. He knew she'd be hurt…but she would get over it. She was a tough kid.

He sneaked stealthily down the last couple of steps into the Rec Room, pausing to peek around the corner before he went in. Jubilee was stretched out on the couch, asleep under a thin old blanket he recognized as belonging to the Cajun…and speaking of the devil, there was Remy himself, sitting at the far end of the couch and sipping one of Logan's beers, with Jubilee's head in his lap. "_Allo_," Remy greeted him somberly, quietly. "Where you been, _homme_?"

Logan crossed his arms, leaning against the doorframe. "Out," he said shortly, his eyes scanning the carnage on the table for any sign of his missing beer. He counted the two bottles in front of Jubilee with a bit of surprise, and a little disapproval—and then he kicked himself, sharply. She was a woman, not a girl, and she could drink if she wanted to. There were three bottles in front of Remy, and the last bottle was in his hand. "That my beer yer drinkin'?"

Remy nodded, his face grim. "Yep. Jubilee drank herself to sleep, Logan. Depressed all night, 'cause you 'blew her off', as she said." He gently stroked Jubilee's hair back from her forehead, and Logan had to resist the impulse to growl at the proprietary attitude in the gesture. "Why you go off an' leave her, Logan?"

Logan sighed and unfolded his arms. "She been hangin' around fer the last couple o' weeks, pouncin' on me an' tryin' ta get me ta do this, do that with her. She's young, Rems, she don't need to be hangin' aroun' an old man like me." His tone softened. "Especially when that ol' man's got more enemies than she got fingers."

Remy sighed. He had thought that might be part of the reason. "You t'ink she care?"

Logan looked indignant. "I care, Remy! She deserves ta live a long, full life, an' die a grandmother. Not an early grave and a big tombstone 'cause she was hangin' with me."

Remy shook his head. "Logan, de kind o' work we do, none o' us going to live a long time," he said, keeping his voice soft even as his words sharpened. Jubilee stirred in her sleep, and both men instinctively held their breaths, hoping she wouldn't wake. After a moment she settled back down on Remy's leg and slipped back into a deep sleep. Remy let out the breath he was holding and looked back up at Logan. "If she want to risk hers hanging out wit' you, isn' dat kind of her choice to make? Do you have de right to tell her not to do somet'ing dat means so much to her?"

"Yes!" Logan exclaimed—but quietly.

Remy shook his head. "You not her fat'er, Logan. You not a parent, or in any way related to her, so you don' have de right to tell her what to do wit' her life."

"I am a senior member of the team, an' if I say she can't do something', she can't do it."

"An' Scott is de team leader, but if he tells you to do somet'ing, you don' necessarily do it. You stick it to Scott as often as you can an' not compromise de team. She been hangin' wit' you all dese years, you t'ink she wouldn't do de same t'ing to you someday? She learn from de bes'."

Logan stood there, thinking about that for a moment, then gave a low, frustrated growl and turned, leaving the room as abruptly as he entered it.

As his footsteps faded away, a soft voice said, "He kinda reminds me of Scott, sometimes. When it comes to me doing something he doesn't want me to do, he gets his back up."

Remy looked down at Jubilee, looking at him with her eyes open. "T'ought you asleep, p'tite."

She shook her head. "Heard every word. I'm a light sleeper."

Remy hmmph'ed. "Since when? Used to sleep like a log, if Remy remember right. All dose times Scott went and dragged you out de bed in de morning for dose early Danger Room sessions."

"Haven't slept that soundly since…since…" Jubilee couldn't finish the sentence. She held out her arm, and Remy's gaze was drawn to the long white scar on the inside of her arm, where straightjacket straps had rubbed her skin raw. He understood. Bastion.


	3. Rejection

Chapter 3: Rejection

Jubilee peeked out the window toward the pool. It was a hot afternoon, everyone was likely to be out there, and sure enough there seemed to be a great deal of activity. Even Charles was there, sitting in a lounge chair wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Her eyes scanned the pool area until she found the person she wanted: Logan. He was sitting at the nearby picnic table, sharing a beer with Remy and obviously having a good time.

She growled to herself as she started rummaging around in her drawers for her swimsuit. She took out her one-piece, then thought better of it and tossed it on the bed. Reaching back into her drawer, she found her blue bikini, a deep, vibrant pool blue that brought out the color of her eyes. It had a pair of boy-cut bottoms to it, instead of the skimpy thongs Emma and Rogue and Ororo wore. She wished she'd bought the thong bottom, instead of the short bottom; she'd definitely catch Logan's eye in the thong bottoms. As it was, well…

She looked at herself in the mirror as she picked up her beach towel. She'd never have the eye-popping rack that Ororo, and Rogue had, or the decent chest Paige and Annie had, nor would she ever be able to afford ones like Emma's (as if she would want to!)…but they were nicely-sized for her petite frame, and the bikini top had a supporting underwire that pushed her chest out a little more. It should catch Logan's attention.

She wrapped her towel around her waist, sarong-style, and took her black hair out of the ponytail she wore it in, letting it run down her back. Logan was a sucker for long hair; it was one of the reasons she'd grown it out from her usual boyish crop. Slipping her feet into her blue flip-flops, she headed out to the pool.

The others were busy splashing around in the pool as she approached from behind Logan. He didn't see her as she walked up, but Remy, facing Logan, certainly did. "Hey, _p'tite_," he said genially, waving a hand toward her. "Come sit wit' us."

Logan spun around. He'd been sitting upwind, and he hadn't smelled her coming. His jaw dropped as he saw the slender, black-haired nymph coming up to him with a woman's curves and Jubilee's face._ I'll_ _never get used to seeing how grown-up she's become_, he thought to himself, shaking his head. It seemed like only yesterday she was a skinny, loudmouthed kid rollerblading around the mansion, inside and out, and getting in trouble with everyone for doing so. And she hadn't cared a bit. She did what she wanted to do with little thought to what others would think. As long as it wasn't hurting anybody she didn't see why she couldn't do it. Now she was a slim, curvy, beautiful young woman who…was drinking beer?

Jubilee reached over into the cooler and looked at the beer available. "Let me guess, you're drinking the Miller?" she said to Remy, and wrinkled her nose. "Wolvie, I only see Millers here. Is there any of that Molson's left?"

"Nope."

"You drank it all? And you didn't save any for me? Wolvie!" She sounded disappointed.

"Ya shouldn't be drinkin' anyway," Logan growled.

"Neither should you. Even with the healing factor, alcohol is still not good for you." She shot back. "And what's wrong with me drinking? In case you haven't noticed, I'm several years past legal." She plucked a Corona out of the cooler and held it out to him. "Open it for me, please?" Logan ignored her, and in the end Remy was the one who reached out with the bottle opener and popped the cap. She gave him a sweet smile, and shot Logan a poisonous glance before sitting down, pointedly, on Remy's side of the table. Remy, seemingly oblivious to Logan's increasingly cloudy countenance, put his arm across her back.

She feigned casualness as she tossed back her first mouthful. She liked Logan's Molson better than Corona, but hey, if it pissed Logan off, so much the better. At least she had his attention. And she had gotten him to speak to her, which was a victory for her after the silence of the last couple of days.

Rogue came over and sat on Remy's other side, reaching for a beer also, and the three of them got into an animated conversation about which alcoholic beverages they liked best. Remy liked Miller; Rogue liked Bud, and Jubilee liked Molson. Logan stayed silent, responding to Jubilee's attempts to draw him into the conversation with monosyllabic replies. She talked with the others while keeping an eye on him, and he found himself getting uncomfortable. He finally got up from the table abruptly, pulling his tank top off and dropping it on the bench. He bent to take off his shoes, and as he did, his dog tags swung free from around his neck.

Jubilee stopped talking abruptly as she saw them. There were only two on the chain…which meant the little silver one she had given him with her initial on it was gone. She tried to keep her voice casual as she asked him, "Wolvie? If my charm's broken, I can fix it."

Logan's face flushed, and he floundered for something to say before finally settling for the truth. "Ain't broke. I took it off."

Jubilee's eyes filled with hurt, but her voice was level as she asked, "Why?"

He sighed, standing up and looking straight at her. "I don't like bein' tied down, kid."

That caught her off guard. "But…I…Logan…" She took a deep breath. "It wasn't supposed to tie you down, Wolvie, it was supposed to remind you that we're friends, and I'm always gonna be your friend, no matter what happens. That's why it's called a friendship charm." She held her chain, with its charm, and showed him the L dog tag she wore. "Wear it for me? Please?"

He hesitated, torn by the pleading look in her blue eyes and his own desire to keep her safe. Her safety won out. With no further word, he drained his beer and tossed it in the trash bag, then headed for the pool.

Jubilee stared at his retreating back for a minute, and then unclasped the necklace. Rising from the table, she grabbed his arm, spun him around, and slapped the necklace in his hand. "Fine," she said tightly. "Be a loner. Ignore the people who want to be friends. You'll become an old, bitter man, and it'll be your own damn fault!" She spun quickly around and ran off…but not so quickly that Logan missed the sight and smell of tears of hurt on her cheek.

All the activity around the pool had stopped at Jubilee sudden outburst, and most of the others stared at her retreating back with no comprehension at all. But when Logan looked squarely at them, there was accusation in Emma and Scott's eyes; Scott blamed Logan for Jubilee's outburst. And he saw the same blame in everyone else's eyes. He clenched his fist around the little silver charm and stumped back to the table, yanked his shirt back over his head, jammed his feet in his shoes, and headed off. Not to the house; Jubilee would be there; but to the woods by the lake, where he could cool his temper off.

His mind churned as he walked. It wasn't that he didn't want to be friends with her; it was that he did, very, very much; wanted to get back that easy partnership they'd had before she left for the Massachusetts Academy. He wanted to be the one she chatted with, wanted to get back that easy familiarity they'd had. The problem was that people who got close to him eventually wound up dead. It had happened many times before; but he'd never regretted many of those…not much…until the day she had come so close to dying, and he had come so close to giving up on her. Warren had saved her, Warren and Annie. He still remembered the incredible leap his heart gave when he saw her eyes open again; heard her crack a joke with a ghost of a smile, and he knew she was going to be all right. He'd clung to that during the days of her recovery; Warren's healing thing might heal surface wounds, but the memory of the pain, the dehydration and the exhaustion, was something only time could cure. And of course, there had been her friend, Angelo. He remembered turning away as she bowed her head over the body of her friend, remembered the picture on her dresser. His death had broken her heart. And he knew, better than anyone else, what a broken heart felt like.

"Logan?" a quiet feminine voice interrupted his thoughts. He turned and saw Jubilee's friend Paige standing there, looking worried. "Logan?" she repeated. "What's wrong with Jubes?"

"Yer such good friends with her, ask her," he said gruffly. She drew back, looking hurt, and he sighed and stared at the sky. "We had a fight over some silly piece o' jewelry," he said, opening his fist and looking at the L on the smooth silver surface. "She wants me to wear it, and I don't."

"Jewelry?" Paige frowned at it for a moment before she said, "Oh, yeah, those. She worked on them the whole semester, whenever she could steal time from the projects she was assigned. So she gave one to you, huh? Why aren't you wearing it? It seems a simple enough request."

"Cause I don't wanna be tied down ta a woman," Logan said. "And I don't want her ta feel tied down to me."

Paige snorted, walking up to him and inspecting the silver charm. "You'll never be tied down," she said. "Jubilee's one of the freest spirits I know. She'd no more tie you down than tie herself down." Paige looked up at him, serious. "Look. This isn't about Jubes, is it? It's about you. You don't want to feel like she's close to you. It was okay when she was younger, but not now that she's older."

Logan nodded numbly. Page had hit the nail on the head. When Jubilee was younger, she could only do what she was allowed to do. And going out with the X-Men wasn't high on the list of things she could do. So being friends with her then was okay, because she'd never be in a position where her life could be used against him. Now it was different; he had to keep her at arm's length, because that was what was best for her safety.

Paige snorted when she heard his reasoning. "Come on, Logan. If Jubilee wanted safe she would have gone to grad school. She likes being here, and she likes you. So don't throw away something so precious to both of you because it's what you think is best for her. She's the only one who can decide what is best for her, and if you think she'll just meekly do what you tell her to, the way it was before the Massachusetts Academy opened, you've got another think coming." She turned away from him and sprinted back across the lawn to the house. Logan turned to watch her go…and saw Xavier in his hoverchair heading straight for him.

**I believe you've hurt Jubilee's feelings,** Xavier said telepathically to Logan.

"Yeah," Logan sat down on the large rock by the lake, staring morosely out over the water. "I know I did…but it's for her own good." He had to keep telling himself that, or he would start feeling so bad he'd give in and put the silly little piece of jewelry on just to please Jubilee.

Xavier was quiet for a moment. "Logan, sometimes the things other people think are best for us aren't really what is best. You keeping her away from you…who is that best for? Her or you?"

Logan looked up, startled. Xavier looked back at him soberly. "You might think you're keeping her safe by keeping her away from you…but Jubilee's heart is breaking because she'd under the impression you don't like her anymore. She's confused. You really shouldn't do that to her, Logan."


	4. How Far?

Chapter 4: How Far?

Jubilee looked up as she heard footsteps coming into the kitchen. To her utter surprise, it was Logan. "Hey, whatcha doin' up?" she grinned at him.

For a moment he looked like he was ready to turn around and leave, then he stumped in, dragged a chair out from the kitchen table, turned it around so he could straddle it, and dropped his head on the back of the chair as he closed his eyes. Jubilee got up wordlessly, poured him a mug of coffee—one spoon of sugar—and placed it in front of him at the table. He reached for it without opening his eyes, took a mouthful, ignoring the way its heat scalded his mouth, and then opened his eyes in surprise. "Ya know I usually take it black, darlin'," he drawled.

"The sugar will help you wake up." Jubilee got up out of her chair and leaned against his back, the smooth blue satin of her pajamas a strange contrast against the hair on his back—he hardly ever wore a shirt to bed, and he had obviously not been expecting anyone to be up this early in the morning. She glanced quickly at the clock.

Four-thirty in the morning was really too early for her to be up, too, but she hadn't been able to sleep. She'd come down for a cup of coffee, and had no sooner sat down at the kitchen table when Logan came in. Her eyes followed him as he drank from the cup again, and she noted the bunched, tense muscles in his shoulders. Reaching up tentatively, she stroked him gently, loving the way his soft but coarse body hair slid under her fingers. Obviously he'd showered when he got home last night, because he smelled clean. When he didn't pull away from her fingers, she applied her fingertips to the knotted muscle, trying to massage the kinks out.

Logan stopped himself from groaning out of the sheer sensual pleasure of Jubilee's soft hands. He shouldn't let her do this, he really shouldn't; but it felt so damn good…and it had been a while since he'd felt her do that. She used to do this for him when she was younger, massage his shoulders when he was tense. And he'd liked it. He'd missed it, too; he just hadn't realized how much he'd missed it till now.

_Yer an ol' man, Logan_, he chided himself, even as his tension melted away under her fingers. _An'_ _she's a beautiful young woman. She ain't a girl anymore. This ain't right_. But he couldn't keep himself from rolling his shoulders back as Jubilee reached for the junction of his shoulders and neck. Even having a healing factor couldn't take tension out of muscles, couldn't do away with the pleasure a good massage could bring.

He rested his elbows on top of the chair back, stretching out his spine. Behind him, Jubilee moved from his shoulders and the back of his neck down to his spine and the heavy muscles in the middle of his back. As she bent over to reach the small of his back, he took a discreet sniff. Jubilee had obviously just showered; she smelled of lavender soap and shampoo, finished off with a lotion in a light, not too overwhelming scent of wildflowers. She'd found out a long time ago that he hated the strong scents that Emma and Rogue and Betsy favored, preferring instead the warm earthy cinnamon and honey smell of the exotic lotion Ororo put on. She'd then experimented until she found her own blend of natural oils, and started using that exclusively. Logan had appreciated it.

He also appreciated the fact that she didn't ooze sexual pheromones, like a couple of the others did. She still smelled like herself, maybe a little muskier since she'd hit puberty, but not noticeably. And right now, there was none. She was concentrating on making him feel good, not seducing him.

Her hair was still damp, her pajamas freshly out of the drawer. That was another change, and a welcome one. He'd gotten used to seeing her in slightly rumpled, musty smelling clothes straight from the floor, or bed, or chair of her room. Since she'd come back, the few glimpses he'd gotten of her room showed it to be neat, without the clutter that had filled it formerly. He was kind of sorry she'd had to grow up; he'd enjoyed hanging around with her. But her newfound maturity had its advantages too.

He leaned his head back, gritting his teeth to stifle the moan as she crouched behind him, working on the large muscle groups in his lower back. Her hands were larger, her muscles stronger, so she could rub harder. He lifted his left elbow, giving her access to the muscles under his left ribs, and as she went to work on them, they both heard another set of footsteps coming down the hall.

The door opened, and Emma stumbled in, yawning and rubbing her eyes. As soon as she saw who else was in the room, she froze, looking surprised. "Logan? Jubilee?" she asked. "What are you doing?"

Logan had frozen as soon as Emma had come in. Scott was on his way, because Emma smelled…well, she had Scott's pheromones all over her, and that meant they both were completely awake. And that also meant that soon Bobby and Hank would be up too; they had rooms closest to the couple, and would be the first ones to wake up from the…noise. "Couldn't sleep," he finally managed.

"We neither of us could sleep," Jubilee said absently, focused on her task. She never looked up from her fingertip inspection of Logan's right ribs. "So I decided to try some massage therapy. I took a course in it back in college, just for the fun of it. Comes in handy sometimes."

Emma blinked. "Well, maybe you could at least put a shirt on?" she said irritably. "Jubilee is a young girl, Logan, there's no need to offend her, and all of our, delicate sensibilities by sticking a big hairy back right in her face—"

Logan got up with a growl, pulling his back out of reach of those soothing fingers, and stumped out of the kitchen. "Logan, wait, don't go…" Jubilee trailed off as the kitchen door slammed, and she turned to Emma, her face flushing hot. She'd been having a nice quiet moment with Logan, and now Emma had gone and ruined it. She turned to face the skimpily-dressed blonde, thought of a number of things she wanted to say, decided against most of them, although she knew she was projecting all over the place and Emma could hear perfectly well what she was thinking, then whirled and left the kitchen.

Emma blinked confusedly, still caught in the whirling chaos of Jubilee's raw anger. "What did I do?"

Ororo, as if sensing something wasn't right with Jubilee's temper, did what she usually did when Jubilee was upset; took Jubilee out shopping. She didn't bring up any of the events of the morning, waiting for Jubilee to talk as she usually did, but Jubilee remained uncharacteristically silent, and when they came back Ororo had no more understanding of the subject than she had when they started. As she put her shopping bag down on the bed and started to unpack it, she heard a shriek from down the hall.

Jubilee was in her room, trying on the new bra and panties she'd bought when there came a tap on her door. She was about to call out that she wasn't decent when the door opened and the person walked in. She gathered herself for a shriek of outrage, which she stopped as soon as she saw who her visitor was.

Logan.

She knew what her shocked cry must have done to him when he staggered back and sat heavily on the end of her bed. Biting her lip, she sat down beside him, "Wolvie? You okay? I didn't hurt you, did I?"

He groaned, shaking his head, and instead of answering her, he got up and left her room as abruptly as he'd come in. She was left, sitting there, stunned, and after a moment she flung herself face down into her pillow and pounded her fist in it.

A moment later, there was another tap at her door, and she looked up, to see Ororo standing in the doorway. She was frowning. "Jubilee? Is everything all right? Logan just came running by my door looking upset. Is anything wrong?"

Jubilee rolled over and let Ororo take a seat on the edge of the bed. "Ororo, am I ugly?" she asked.

Ororo's frown got deeper. "No, Jubilee, you have grown into a lovely woman," she said perplexed. "Whatever would give you such an idea?"

"Wolvie's suddenly started staying as far away from me as possible. We got close, this morning; he'd had a rough night out and he was all tense, so I tried out some of the massage therapy I learned in college. It seemed to be working, too…up until Emma came in and got all mother hen on us, and Wolvie left. Then he just came in, saw me in my underwear, and ran away like I was the Wicked Witch or something." Jubilee propped her chin on her fists and waited.

Ororo thought carefully before she opened her mouth. She'd seen this coming for several weeks; she was mildly surprised it hadn't come to a head sooner than this, given Jubilee's temper. "He was not expecting to see you in undergarments," she managed finally.

"Well yeah, that I knew," Jubilee said. "But he's seen me in my underwear before…and I've seen him in a lot less. This shouldn't be different. Over the years we've seen each other naked a few times, it's like, practically a non-issue to me now."

"To you, maybe," Ororo said, sighing. "But you have been gone some time, and he has not yet gotten used to seeing you as a young woman. It reminds him of how old he is, and that is not a thing any of us like to think about."

"Even you?" Jubilee looked interested.

"Yes, even me," Ororo said gently, getting up. "You're a reminder that we're getting older."

"Yes, but…Wolvie? He's got that healing factor, he's not gonna get old!"

Ororo sighed. "He may not age physically as we do, Jubilee, but experiences can age a person the same way years will."

Jubilee looked thoughtful. "Oh. Yeah, he's got enough of those to last like, several lifetimes."

"Sit him down. Talk to him. Get his attention, and talk to him. You and he are among my closest friends, I don't want to see you upset with each other." She quietly left Jubilee's room.

Jubilee sat for a while, thinking, then went to her desk. Pulling out a sheet of paper, she penned a quick letter, then pulled a small silver digital music player from one drawer. Rummaging quickly in a box of digital music chips, she slid one into her player, set it for the song she wanted, and scribbled a quick postscript to the bottom of the letter. Then she set it all on her desk, cleared it of its other clutter so it was immediately noticeable, and went under her bed for her suitcases. She'd been promising to visit her friend Casey for a little while now; she could crash at Casey's while Logan thought over the contents of the letter.

She rummaged in her drawers, setting aside neatness for expediency, taking her underclothing, her checkbook and wallet, half her dresser's worth of clothes, and stuffed them in her suitcase, followed at last by Logan's old, battered cowboy hat. Closing her suitcase, she then made sure everything was neat before she walked out of the room and headed for the garage.

One of the first things she did when she started earning her own money was save it up so she could get a bike just like Logan's. It sat now in the motorcycle part of the garage, beside Logan's; his a gleaming black, hers a midnight blue. In every way except color, it was the twin to Logan's own; she had bought it for that purpose. Learning to ride it had been another trick; she had gotten a friend to teach her so that when she did come home with the bike, she had surprised Logan completely by having a license for the bike as well as the car when she came home.

She strapped the suitcase to the back of her bike; she'd packed light, figuring if she needed anything else, she could borrow Casey's things (they were both the same height and weight, and had exchanged clothes with regular frequency while they shared the same room in college.) Then, getting on it, she revved it up as quietly as possible and headed out of the garage.

Logan sat in his room for a while, stretched out on the bed, thinking. He shouldn't have just walked in on her like that; no wonder she had screamed, he had startled her. He should go and apologize.

And Emma was making dinner. That was another excuse to escape the mansion. Maybe he should take Jubilee to one of his bar-and-grill places to apologize.

As if on cue, he heard Emma's telepathic call for everyone to come down to dinner. He groaned and headed for Jubilee's room instead. When he saw her room door open, he gave the doorframe a tap and walked in.

It was empty, and neat. There was a sheet of paper on the surface of the desk, and a little silver music player on it. He picked up the letter first.

_Dear Wolvie_, it started.

I'm sorry things have gotten to this point. I missed you while I was away, and you said you missed me, but now that I am home, I'm seeing more of your back than your face. I miss that close partnership we had before I went to the Massachusetts Academy; I miss it and I want it back, but I didn't stop to think maybe you don't. I'm sorry I keep forcing myself, and my company, on you when you so obviously don't want it. Or maybe you do, and you don't know it.

_I'm taking a little vacation while you work out what you want to do about us. Don't worry about me, I'll be fine._

_Jubilee._

That was all. No 'sincerely', or 'I miss you', or those little X's and O's that drove Logan crazy when she wrote a whole row of them across the bottom of her letters while she was away. Just her name. Not quite believing that that was all, his eyes went to the bottom of the page. She had written a postscript; _Logan, listen to the song in the player_.

He switched it on.

There's a boat, I could sail away 

_There's the sky, I could catch a plane_

_There's a train, there's the tracks_

_I could leave and I could choose to not come back._

_There you are, giving up the fight_

_Here I am, begging you to try_

_Talk to me, let me in_

_But you just put your wall back up again_

_Oh when's it gonna end?_

_How far do I have to go to make you understand_

_I want to make this work so much it hurts_

_But I just can't keep on giving,_

_Go on living with the way things are_

_So I'm gonna walk away _

_And it's up to you to say how far._

Logan felt like someone had hit him in the middle with a baseball bat, but the song went on.

There's a chance I could change my mind 

_But I won't, not till you decide_

_What you want, what you need_

_Do you even care if I stay or leave?_

_What's it gonna be?_

_How far do I have to go to make you understand_

_I want to make this work so much it hurts _

_But I just can't keep on giving_

_Go on living with the way things are_

_So I'm gonna walk away_

_And it's up to you to say how far._

_Out of this chair, or just across the room_

_Halfway down the block, or halfway to the moon…_

Logan switched off the player and ran for his room, grabbing his jacket and his helmet. He stuffed the little silver player in his pocket and hurried past the dining room, ignoring Emma's sharp call back to the table, and ran for the garage.


	5. Bar Fight

Chapter 5: Bar Fight

Jubilee sat at a small table in the back of the bar, nursing her drink.

Casey hadn't been home so she'd decided to kill some time. Unable to think of anything to do, she'd pulled up at this seedy little bar Logan had mentioned a few times, and gone in. They had looked at her suspiciously when she asked for a beer, but said nothing when she produced her ID. Now she sat at a small back table, staring at the bottle and wondering what the hell she was doing.

"Ah, hell," she said in an unconscious imitation of Logan, and tossed back a last gulp of her beer. She shouldn't be here staring at the damn thing. Maybe she should go back and talk to Wolvie, tell him what she was feeling, get him to talk to her…

"Hey," came a rough voice from behind her. She raised her head, looked at the two men who had just walked up to her table. "Whatcha doin' here, little girl?"

"I'm not a little girl," Jubilee said flatly, returning her gaze to the bottle. It was empty; maybe she could get away from them by going to get another one. She got up without a word to the two men and went to the bar. "Another Molson, please."

"Make that two," said a gravelly voice from behind her. She turned, surprised, and saw Logan standing behind her. "Hey, darlin'."

God, only a few hours away from the mansion and she had missed him _so_ much. Her heart slammed around in her ribcage for a few minutes before settling down, and she managed a cool, 'Hi, Wolvie', when what she really wanted to do was throw her arms around him and hug him tightly.

"Got a table?" Logan asked as the bartender pushed the bottles across to them. He slipped the man a few bills and handed Jubilee her bottle. "We need ta talk."

I'll say, Jubilee thought to herself, but she didn't say it aloud. Instead she led him across the bar and back to the table she'd occupied before, noting with relief that the two drunks who had spoken to her had disappeared. She dropped into her chair and sat silently as Logan sat down across from her.

They sat in uneasy silence for a moment, she waiting for him to say something, and Logan fidgeting with his bottle uneasily. Finally she opened her mouth and spoke. "Wolvie—"

He spoke at the same time. "Jubes—"

She looked at him, he looked at her, and they both laughed. The tension around them cleared a little, and she grinned at him. She was rewarded with an answering grin.

"Look, Jubilee," Logan said, putting his beer down and looking at her squarely. "I'm sorry fer the way I been actin'. And I don't want ya ta go nowhere. It's just…yer very special ta me, an' I don't want nothin' ta happen to ya. Jubilee, everybody I ever cared 'bout, everybody I ever loved, died 'cause o' me. Mariko…Silver Fox…" he swallowed hard. "If it wasn't fer Winged Boy's healin' factor, you'd'a died when those bastards crucified ya. I was…" he took her hand, touching the pale, almost unnoticeable scar on the back of her hand. "I was so glad when ya opened yer eyes, so glad ya made it…I don't think I could bear seein' ya die like that again."

"Is that why you've been keeping me away?" Jubilee said gently, capturing his hand with hers. His callused, rough palm felt warm in her own smaller fingers, and she squeezed his hand gently. "Because you're trying to keep me safe? Logan…I've lost everyone I cared about too. My parents…my family…Illyana…Everett and Mondo and Angelo…you don't have the monopoly on losing the people you love." Her voice softened even more as she said, "But it's more important to treasure the time I did spend with them than to try to keep everyone at a distance because I'm afraid they might die. Logan…we face death every day. Some of us have more than a nodding acquaintance with Death. I died, Annie says, on that table. I was dead for a while. And I came back. It's not really a bad thing, thought I did feel like sh—"

"Watch yer language," Logan warned automatically.

Jubilee threw back her head and laughed, and Logan watched her, smiling a little. She finally wiped her eyes and said, still chuckling, "I'm not a little girl, Logan. I can say what I want." She saw his face, and chuckled again. "Okay. I felt like crap when I came back. Happy?" She took a sip of her beer and went on, her tone getting serious again. "We face death as X-Men every day, Logan. It's practically an occupational hazard for us. Any one of us could kick the bucket at any time, even you." She snorted. "Hell, Jean's kicked it several times, and look, she came back most of those times. I still haven't counted her out, I keep waiting for her to pop up somewhere on Earth. God must have a revolving door policy for her." Logan grinned at her, and she smiled back, her blue eyes twinkling. "I guess…what I'm trying to say, Logan, is that yes, I might die tomorrow, at the hands of one of our enemies, or one of yours, or I might get hit crossing the street. But if I do, I will have spent the time with the people I love and it will have been worth it. I love you, and I want you as a part of my life forever." She sighed. "I've had a crush on you for a long time; but I know you don't really feel the same. I'm willing to settle for that, Logan, if it means you'll still be my friend. I want the closeness we had before I left for Massachusetts. I miss that." Her voice dropped. "God, I missed you."

Logan's heart contracted in his chest. "Missed ya too, darlin'," he said, finally admitting aloud something he'd resisted admitting to himself. While she was gone, he'd catch himself thinking, _I miss the_ _kid_ and then quantify it by thinking, _I don't miss** her**, I miss the way she annoyed Scott all the time_ or something like that. He'd resisted admitting to himself that he missed her, missed her company, her laugh, her smile, her bright blue eyes, even her infernal, everlasting sloppiness and damn bubblegum smell, and the mouth that ran on at a million miles an hour. "I really did miss ya."

"So what do you say?" she said, holding out her hand to him. "Wanna start over?"

He looked up into those blue eyes again, and said, "Sure, kid."

"…and stop calling me kid!"

He reached out, grinning, and ruffled her black hair. "Sure, kid." He teased her while she squirmed and protested, and finally she broke into smiles.

"Let's go home, Wolvie," she said, gathering her coat and shoving her wallet in her back pocket. She started to stand…and sat down again, very hard, as she collided with a huge mountain of a man standing just beside their table.

"What's this, a chickie trying to grow some balls?" he sneered at her, then ignored her completely and focused on Logan. "You an' me, we got some unfinished business, runt."

Logan sighed. Now he remembered why he avoided this particular bar. The drunks here never learned…or they got too drunk to remember the lesson he pounded into them every time they picked a fight with him. But tonight he wasn't in the mood to fight; he was tired, and he knew Jubilee had to be, and he wanted to get her installed safely in her room back at the mansion before she changed her mind and went haring off to…wherever she had been intending to run off to. "Git lost," he said wearily, getting up and reaching for his motorcycle helmet. "I ain't in the mood fer it tonight."

"What, in the mood for love?" the man reached out, grabbed Jubilee's arm, and hauled her out of her seat, pulling her close to him. "Well, I guess I can see your hurry, wanna take this chick to bed."

Logan exploded. "Hands offa her!" He grabbed Jubilee's arm, pulling her away from the other man by main force, pushed her behind him, and stood protectively in front of her. "Gotta go through me ta git ta her," he challenged. He didn't want to fight, but if the man was spoiling for it, he'd give it to him.

"My pleasure." He ignored Jubilee's 'Logan, he's not worth it, let's get out of here!' and advanced on the man.

The other guy swung first. Logan ducked under the swing and came up inside the man's guard to plant a fist in the man's ribs. The man grunted, wrapping his arms around Logan and dragging him backward a few steps. He used his meaty left fist to bash Logan in the head. Jubilee shrieked, a short, sharp sound, as the fist connected with Logan's eye. Logan howled.

"Let him be!" Jubilee darted forward into the fray, and tugged rather ineffectually at the man's arm. For all it moved it might have been solid rock. "Leave him alone!"

"Jubes!" Logan yelled at her, punching at the man's gut to get him to let her go, "Stay outta this, yer gonna git hurt!"

Jubilee ignored him, continuing to hang on the man's arm. With a low growl, the man flung his arm wide, sending Jubilee flying. However, the brief moment of distraction was long enough for Logan to fight his way free of the other man's arms, and he took up a ready stance just outside the man's reach, looking warily for an opening.

He risked a quick glance over to the corner. Jubilee was sitting against the wall, shaking her head, looking dazed but all right. A woman sitting at a table near her was helping her stand, speaking to her in a low voice. Satisfied Jubilee hadn't been hurt by the big man in front of him, Logan turned his attention back to the fight. Just in time, as a big fist swung at him. He ducked, and the fist crashed into the table behind him, demolishing the table and sending the two half-empty bottles of Logan's and Jubilee's beer crashing to the floor. What a waste of good beer, Logan thought as the smell permeated his senses.

"Stop it!" Jubilee cried out again, but both men ignored her until a stream of multicolored pyrotechnics exploded in the air between them with a series of loud 'paffs' until both men's ears were ringing. Jubilee walked forward, her hands outstretched and ready to deliver another round if they didn't get the message. "Stop it," she said firmly. "I don't want to be fought over. I don't care to see you fighting over whose balls are bigger. And it's not like the winner of the fight's going to get to walk off with me." She took Logan's arm. "Come on, Logan, let's go home."

"Not goin' anywhere, chirpy," the big man growled, reaching out to her. Jubilee turned, eyes blazing, and shot a stream of colored sparks at him, which then exploded right before his eyes. As he staggered back, temporarily blinded by the brightness, Jubilee led Logan out of the bar.

"Look at you," Jubilee fussed as they stopped near their bikes. She ran her hands through Logan's hair, getting its points back in place (and Logan tried not to think about how good those fingers actually felt running through his hair) and then she handed him his helmet. "Let's go home. You're going to need aspirin, and a shower. You smell like beer."

Logan still hesitated.

"What's wrong?" she asked him.

"Ya had a drink," he said a little more accusingly than he meant to.

"So?" she shrugged. "So did you. I only had one, Logan, and the mansion isn't that far. Or if you think we won't make it home, we can hit a motel. There's one up the road." She pointed at a neon red sign that said 'vacancy' at a small motel three buildings up. "But I'm perfectly capable of driving my bike home." She patted the seat of her beloved motorcycle.

Logan looked at her. One drink wasn't much…but she did have a slight build, and he knew from watching her eat that she had a fast metabolism. She might feel fine now, but she might not make it home. "Let's hit the motel," he said. If it had been just him, he wouldn't have hesitated; but this was Jubilee, and he had to take care of her.

They checked in. Jubilee didn't have a lot of cash with her, but the motel was 'affordably priced', as the cashier told them "Translation: cheap," Jubilee muttered to Logan behind her hand as she took the keys. Logan grinned at her and they went off to the room they'd been given. It was small, a single room with a double bed and a bathroom. Logan was all for leaving when he saw there was only one bed.

Jubilee scoffed. "Oh, Wolvie. It's not like I'm going to jump your bones." Still chuckling, she claimed the bathroom first.

Logan hadn't brought anything with him, so he grabbed the remote to the TV and flipped through the channels until she came out of the bathroom, dressed in a set of blue flannel pajamas from her suitcase. She flopped wearily down on the bed beside him, yawning, and grabbed the remote from him. "Your turn for the bathroom," she said.

Logan sighed as she began to surf the channels and got up. He didn't particularly care what they watched; but she just had this habit of flipping through channels and the constant changing of images on the TV screen was distracting. "Find something and leave it on, will ya?" he said as he went toward the bathroom.

"Sure, Wolvie," Jubilee said absently as she continued to channel surf. Logan shook his head and headed for the shower.

He stepped in and turned the water on, leisurely taking a long hot shower. When he emerged half an hour later, hair still damp and wearing only his boxers, he found her curled up on her side of the double bed, sound asleep. The remote had fallen from her limp hand, and lay on the floor while an old black and white Godzilla movie flickered on the TV screen. Smiling a little, a soft, tender smile he never let anyone see, he pulled the covers up to cover her, turned the TV off, switched out the light, and crawled into the bed beside her. He lay awake for a while thinking, until the sound of her soft breathing lulled him to sleep.


	6. Return To The Mansion

Chapter 6: Return to the Mansion

The sun was shining through the window in a bright parallelogram over the bedcovers when Logan woke.

He lay there for a long while, letting the events of the night before run through his mind, then turned to look at the girl beside him.

Jubilee was lying curled up against his side, her body tucked against his ribs. Her breathing was shallow and even, and she looked so peaceful he didn't have the heart to wake her. But he was going to have to get up, because the arm her head rested on was completely asleep, and more importantly, nature was calling him. He carefully slid out of bed, easing his pillow under her head to replace his arm, and slid out of bed. He attended to his business in the bathroom, wrinkling his nose at the smells in it. The motel staff did clean, apparently, but not thoroughly, and the odor of other occupants lingered in the air under the smell of disinfectant. Jubilee might not smell anything, but to his enhanced senses the smell was offensively apparent.

He returned to the bed, picking his clothes up as quietly as he could and pulling them on. From the window he'd seen a fast-food place across the street, and he desperately wanted some coffee. And he knew Jubilee would too.

It only took a few moments to walk across the street and order their food; two large coffees, his black, hers with cream and sugar, and a small breakfast of pancakes, eggs, sausage, and bacon. They could fill up when they got home.

He opened the door quietly; she was still asleep. Closing the door gently with a backward shove of his foot, he set the food down on a small table, sat down in a chair himself, and picked up his coffee.

A small sound interrupted him. A tiny, almost inaudible (even to his sensitive hearing) gasp. He walked over to the bed.

Jubilee was curled up in a tight ball, so tight his own muscles ached in sympathetic pain. Her lips were slightly parted, and there was a furrow across her forehead. She gasped again, as he watched, and squeezed her eyes shut. A single tear trickled from under her eyelashes, and she clenched her fists so tightly her nails dug into her palm. "No…" the word was barely audible. "Please…" her head snapped back on her neck.

A nightmare. Logan flinched at the sound of the pain in her voice, and reached out to touch her shoulder. "Jubes," he said gently, shaking her slightly. "Jubes. Wake up."

She gasped and curled back up, shying away from his touch. "No," she whimpered, eyes still tightly closed. "Bastion, stop hurting Wolvie…please…"

Logan took her shoulders and pulled her upright. "Jubes," he said firmly, loudly, but still gently, "Yer safe. I'm here. No one's gonna hurt me. Wake up, darlin'."

Her eyes flew open, and she stared directly into his eyes for a long moment. Still clouded by the dream, he watched as emotions flitted over her face and through her eyes. Fear. Emotional pain. Pleading. And finally, a recognition of where she was, and who he was, and awareness snapped into place behind her eyes. "Wolvie?"

"Yeah, I'm here," he said as reassuringly as he could. "You're fine. We're at the motel we stopped at last night cause I didn't want ya ta drive yer bike drunk."

"I wasn't drunk," Jubilee said, but her voice lacked conviction. She reached forward and hugged him instead, as if to banish the last of the nightmare, and he hugged her back, tightly. When he finally pulled away her cheek was damp with tears that she tried to hide, and Logan pushed himself off the bed, pretending not to notice the tears. "I got some breakfast," he said, picking up the coffee he'd bought for her and handing it to her. "Coffee, cream and sugar."

Jubilee took her first sip, sitting in bed, with her eyes closed. "Thank you, Wolvie." She wasn't talking about just the coffee.

He smiled gently at her, an expression that only she ever saw. "Yer welcome, Jubes." She gave him a watery, uncertain smile, and put her coffee down on the bedside table, picking up her clothes and heading for the bathroom.

She came out a short while later, dressed and refreshed, looking a little happier now that the last vestiges of the nightmare were gone. She sat down and tucked into the breakfast he'd bought, eating with an appetite that always surprised Logan. She could eat like a horse and yet stayed slim and petite. Well, not that he gained any weight either…

While he finished his share of the breakfast, she tidied up the room, making the bed neatly, packing all of her things back in her bag, then they left. Logan signed them out of the motel register, and he and Jubilee carried their bags around the back of the motel to where they had parked their bikes the night before.

Jubilee was walking a little ahead of Logan, so she got around the corner first. She screamed in shock. Logan hurried until he was standing beside her, and stopped short, aghast.

Both their bikes were on the ground. They were still recognizable as bikes, but they were dented and battered, as if someone had taken a baseball bat to them. Jubilee dropped her bags and ran forward, tears in her blue eyes. "My BIKE!"

Shocked, Logan approached his, staring at the sizable dents and the assorted parts scattered about. He knew immediately what had happened; when they had left the bar, the big man who'd confronted them at the bar last night must have followed them and trashed their bikes. He examined his cursorily, then looked at Jubilee's. "It ain't bad," he said finally. "A few replacement parts, we oughtta be able ta fix it up. Don't cry, Jubes." He patted her shoulder.

"My bike!" Jubilee refused to be consoled. "How could they…just…" words failed her, and she fell to her knees, staring disconsolately at the heap that was her precious bike. "Oh, Logan…"

"It's okay," Logan said. "We'll fix it. Let's get Gumbo out here to pick us up and haul the bikes back to the mansion." He headed for the pay phone.

Remy was somewhat less than happy to be woken out of a late morning sleep, but when he heard Logan explain their problem, he was only too glad to come out with his pickup and a trailer to haul the bikes. He noted her suitcase, her tousled hair, Logan's scruffy just-out-of-bed appearance, but said nothing until they were inside his truck. "So, you have a rough night las' night?"

Jubilee saw the merry, wicked gleam in his eye, and punched him in the arm. "Not like that, Gumbo," she warned him, using Logan's old nickname for him. "I was thinking of taking a vacation from you guys. Logan came after me to convince me to come back. He found me in a bar, and refused to let me drive home. We spent the night in the motel, and when we came out this morning our bikes were all messed up." She clenched her fist. "I'm gonna kill whoever it was that did this!"

Logan shook his head. "No ya ain't," he said. "Yer not goin' after that stupid lowlife. Leave him alone, 'kay?" When she didn't say anything, he cupped her chin and made her look him in the eye. "Okay?"

Reluctantly, she nodded.

Bobby and Hank were outside getting ready to go somewhere when Remy's pickup, with the trailer carrying the two bikes behind him, pulled up. Bobby lost a few precious minutes staring at Logan and Jubilee getting out of Remy's truck together, then ran to help Hank and Remy with Logan's bike. The two men waved him aside, and he walked over to Jubilee instead. "So. Looks like that was some night," he snickered. "Guess you two did a number on each other, hey?"

"Bobby!" Jubilee hollered at him, taking a swing at him with her open palm, but he ducked her swing and went racing around the side of the mansion, howling with laughter. Jubilee sighed as she watched Logan and Remy take her bike off the trailer. It was going to be a very long day.

Hank wiped his hands off on a shop cloth and turned to Logan. "As my erstwhile companion has elected to pursue other interests rather than joining me on our little expedition, perhaps you and Jubilee will care to accompany me? We could stop at the parts store to purchase the parts you will need to restore your motorcycles to their former pristine condition."

Logan looked at the bikes as he grabbed Jubilee's suitcase out of the truck and handed it to her. "Gotta see what parts we need 'fore we go an' buy 'em," he told Hank. "But thanks anyway. Hey, Jubes," he called after her as she headed off into the mansion, "Put on some old stuff an' come on back out. If yer gonna keep yer bike, ya might as well learn how ta fix it. I'll show ya."

"Really?' Jubilee squealed and ran into the mansion.

She was up in her room putting her clothing away in her drawers when there was a gentle tap on her door, and Emma opened it a moment later. "Jubilee," she said quietly, "May I talk to you?"

Jubilee frowned. "Yeah, what's wrong?"

Emma seated herself on the end of Jubilee's bed and watched her unpack. "We heard that you and Logan spent the night in a motel."

_Uh-oh_, Jubilee thought as she saw Emma assume that 'lecture' pose. She'd seen plenty of that when she was at the Academy; apparently things hadn't changed.

"We thought maybe we'd talk to you," Emma said gently, ignoring Jubilee's stiffened back. "Please understand, we're not trying to interfere in your business, but we don't think you've thought through the ramifications of what you've done. Maybe you were drinking a little last night, and your judgment got a little clouded; but we don't think it should go any further than that. We—"

"Hold it right there," Jubilee said, cutting Emma off in the middle of a sentence. "One; who's the 'we' you keep referring to? You and Scotters?"

"That's Scott to you, young lady," Emma said, the tips of her ears turning slightly pink. "Logan might call Scott by a number of disrespectful nicknames, but you're not getting away with it. And don't change the subject. We don't think it's right for a young girl like you to sleep with a man twice your age, if not more…"

"'Young girl'? Emma, I'm twenty-three. Last time I checked, that was well over the age to be considered an adult around here. And who I spend the night with is none of yours, or Scott's, business." Jubilee finished putting her clothes back in her drawer and reached for an old pair of cutoffs; she was likely going to get dirty, and she didn't want to ruin a new pair of shorts.

"It is our business," Emma insisted. "Jubilee, you're a former student, and I care a lot about you. I want to keep you from making a mistake you'll regret…"

Jubilee yanked her black t-shirt over her head and stuffed her feet in her black sneakers. "And isn't that my mistake to make, if I want to?" she said. "He's been there for me since I came to the mansion. More than any of the rest have been. He's never treated me like a kid, except when I deserved it; he's never pushed me aside, told me I was too young to do something (unless I really was) and he's the only one who really kept in regular contact with me when I came to you at the Academy. Everybody else just stuck me there and forgot about me. He never did."

"They did _not_ 'forget' about you—" Emma protested, but Jubilee cut her off.

"Well that's what it looked like to me. And he'd get in trouble for running up there to see me from Scott. He told me so. So stop trying to pretend you guys have my best interests in mind." Jubilee finished tying her shoe up and dragged her hair up in a ponytail at the top of her head. "And besides…Bobby didn't even stop to ask what happened. Yes, we spent the night in a motel, but nothing happened. So you can get off your soapbox." Jubilee ran out of her room, leaving Emma with some very mixed feelings. Bobby was going to get in trouble for putting her in Jubilee's bad graces; but at that moment Jubilee didn't care. The least Bobby could have done was talk to her before he made assumptions. And what was worse, he'd probably spread it around the mansion! She wondered what Xavier would have to say when he heard the rumors.


	7. Xavier

Chapter 7: Xavier

Logan heard footsteps approaching, and turned around, expecting to see Jubilee. This was the last day of work on his bike; tomorrow they'd start on hers. She had approached him after breakfast about getting to work early; he'd put her off until after lunch (last night with Remy and Jubes at the bar had been a little rough.) It was with a bit of surprise, then, when he saw Scott striding purposefully into the garage. "Where's Jubes?"

"She's inside." Scott sat down on the front bumper of a nearby car and folded his arms, looking at Logan seriously. "Logan, I've been meaning to talk to you."

Logan curled his fingers a little tighter around the wrench. Every time Scott got that 'we have to talk' tone in his voice, it meant 'I'm doing the talking, and you're going to do the listening and obeying.' Instead of saying what he really thought (it wouldn't have been particularly nice) he opted for a noncommittal grunt and didn't look up.

"It's about Jubilee—"

_Uh oh_. Logan kept the expression on his face carefully neutral.

"—we don't think that hanging around with you is a very good thing. She had a hangover this morning, did you know that?"

No. He hadn't. She'd seemed fine this morning. However, as he'd watched her try to drink Remy under the table last night, a hangover had been one of the things he knew she'd wake up with this morning. After this, she wouldn't try doing that again; he was certain. It was one of those things he knew someone would have to learn the hard way. And with Jubilee, as hardheaded as she was, if he'd tried just telling her not to do it, she'd be all the more determined to do the exact opposite. It was just the way she was. At least she'd done it in front of him and Remy, both experienced drinkers. They knew when she'd had enough, and kept her from suffering anything worse than a hangover.

"So?"

"So—" and here Scott paused for dramatic effect, "we don't think this was the wisest thing she's ever done. I don't think she would have gone out and gotten that drunk if it hadn't been for you and Remy. She's a little too old to be grounded, and she didn't take too kindly to being told not to go out drinking, so I decided to appeal to your sense of honor. Don't take her to any more bars, no matter how much she begs."

"Whoa." Logan put the wrench down and stood up. "Look, Cyke. Yer sayin' I oughtta tell her where she can or can't go, what she can do, an' treat her as if she was thirteen again? Do you honestly think that's gonna work? Since when did she ever do what one o' us told her?"

"She listens to you."

"Since when?" came a challenging voice. Both men turned, and saw Jubilee standing in the garage doorway, her fists on her hips. "Since when do I listen to what Logan says…or what Scott says? When did the two of you become my bosses?' she studied them both, fire crackling in her blue eyes, and finally settled her gaze on Scott. "This was all your idea. Emma and you have been ambushing me over the last couple of days trying to tell me that hanging with Logan is the wrong thing for me to do. Well, I have news for you; if you think I'm going to stop hanging around with my best friend you have another think coming!" Her voice had risen steadily during the last couple of sentences, until she was shouting at the top of her lungs.

"And I'll tell you something!" Scott was shouting now too. "You are a member of the team, and you have a responsibility to keep yourself in condition so as not to become a liability to us in a battle! If you have a hangover it will impair your ability to function, and that could put us all in danger! You're not a little girl anymore, grow up!"

Jubilee turned a bright pink. "In case you haven't noticed, I am grown up!" she yelled. "I know what my responsibilities are! Do you think if I thought I would be a liability to you I would include myself in a mission? Huh? You think I'd deliberately put all of you in a position like that? You don't know me, Scott; you haven't even realized I'm not thirteen anymore! You don't know what I can, or can't, do anymore. Don't make assumptions. And as for Logan dragging me out…I invited myself, so it wasn't his fault. Get off his back!"

"My, my," came a calm voice from behind all of them. Logan whirled, followed by Scott and Jubilee. Hank stood behind them, accompanied by Charles in the motorized wheelchair they used for going out. Hank was looking at Scott and Jubilee with a look of consternation. "Might I point out to both of you that shouting at each other in this manner is not conducive to anyone believing that either one of you are much past adolescence?"

"I'm adolescent?" Scott practically sputtered. "Hey, where do you get off telling me I'm acting young, Hank? Jubilee's the one who's endangering us all with her juvenile antics and refusal to grow up!" Logan had to bite his lip. Hank was right; with the way Scott was sounding now, he sounded not much older than he was accusing Jubilee of being.

"Perhaps we would be much more comfortable discussing this in my study?" Xavier said mildly. "My trip can be postponed, Hank. Let's see if we can get to the bottom of this, shall we?" he gestured to Scott and Jubilee. But when Logan made a motion to follow, Xavier shook his head. "You are obviously involved in something at the moment," he said, indicating the grease smears on Logan's jeans. "Please, continue with what you were doing."

Xavier sat behind his desk, hands steepled before him, regarding the two people in front of his desk.

Jubilee, when she was angry, got flushed. It was the one thing that hadn't changed. What had changed, however, was the way she handled that anger. No longer did her pyrotechnics explode whatever she touched; she had gained that much control over her powers. Still, Xavier could almost see the glowing blue sparks in her eyes.

Scott suddenly seemed older to Xavier, next to Jubilee's youthful energy. The team leader was sputtering, spitting out words as fast as he could, trying to get what he was trying to say out over Jubilee's interruptions.

"Scott," he said quietly but firmly, his hand held for silence. Both Jubilee and Scott stopped yelling at each other and stared at him. He smiled to himself. Scott had, in the past, acted more like Jubilee's big brother; some things didn't change. "Jubilee, while I understand you are old enough to make your own choices, and deal with their consequences, Scott does have a point. A hangover could imperil the team if you go on a mission with one." Jubilee was about to interrupt, but Xavier held up a warning hand. "Let me finish. Scott, Jubilee is old enough to drink, now, but she is also mature enough to take responsibility for her actions. I do not believe that she would put the team in danger because of it. But," he said, turning to Jubilee, "I will have to ask you to temper your alcohol consumption, Jubilee. And a bar which Remy and Logan frequents is hardly the right place for you—"

"Hey!" Logan said indignantly from the doorway, which he was just entering. They had left the door open, and he'd gone to change his clothes before he went to defend Jubilee from Scott in front of Charles. "Ain't nothin' wrong with the kinda places I go to…"

"Maybe not for you," Scott shot back. "But a redneck bar is hardly a decent place for a young girl like Jubilee to be in! And with you and Remy egging her on last night, encouraging her to drink more and more, you're not fit company for her either! If either you or Remy had any sense at all, you'd see that! And that's why I'm prohibiting Jubilee from going out at night with you two!"

There was silence for just the barest minute, then Logan spun around on his heel and stormed out of the room. Jubilee gave Scott a look that would have fried him instantly if she'd been gifted with his optic blasts, and turned to Xavier. "It was my choice to go last night," she told him levelly. "Remy and Logan didn't want me tagging along; I followed them. It was my decision to drink as much as I did. If anything, having Remy and Logan there kept me from drinking too much and making myself really sick."

Xavier looked at Scott. "Scott, as desirous as you are of keeping Jubilee safe, I don't see that forbidding her Logan's company will do anything but create trouble. Logan's one goal has always been her safety; she's the most important person in his life. If anything, she should spend more time with him; he can teach her a lot about caution and temperance."

The last part of Xavier's sentence went unheard by Jubilee. Fortunate, or Xavier would have gotten an earful about the 'caution and temperance' thing. "Wolvie…I'm the most important person in his life?" she asked, staring at Xavier with wide eyes.

Xavier looked at her soberly. "More than you could ever guess," he said. "He cares about you, deeply. He doesn't let it show most of the time…but you are."

Jubilee got up and rushed out of the room.

He wasn't in his room. He wasn't in the Rec Room, where Remy and Rogue were playing pool. She tried unsuccessfully to find Emma to pinpoint Logan's location, and finally, frustrated, wandered out to the garage. And that was where she found him, tightening the last few bolts on his bike. He was wearing his black leather jacket, and his old duffel bag was strapped to the back of his bike next to two bulging saddlebags.

"Wolvie?" she asked. "Can I talk to you?"

Logan pushed off the floor with a grunt and tossed the wrench in his toolbox. "Don't even bother, darlin'," he said gruffly, swinging astride the bike. "I heard what Chuck said to ya both. He don't want me hangin' round ya neither. Well, kinda hard not ta, we live in the same damn place, but if that's the way everybody feels, I ain't gonna stick around." He revved up the bike, ignoring Jubilee's 'Logan, please!' She put a hand on the handlebars to try and stop him, but he pushed her hand away and roared out of the garage.

Jubilee stared after him, anguished, then ran back inside and up to her room. Grabbing her own helmet and her coat, she then ran back out to the garage and retrieved her own bike. It wasn't totally fixed; Logan had showed her only cursory repairs, figuring he'd have time to show her how to do a proper job later. The bike was rideable…just barely.

She hauled it out of its accustomed spot in the garage and revved it up. It sounded a bit balky, without the throaty roar it usually had…but she didn't care right now, she had to catch up to Logan. She peeled out of the garage and headed down the road he'd chosen.


	8. Near Miss

Chapter 8: Near Miss

Logan rode down the road, fast. He was furious.

Jubilee was his girl, his friend. They couldn't tell her not to hang out with him. Could they? Would she listen? His mind whirled, and he growled a little in anger as he revved the engine and sped up. Well, if they were going to take his little pal away, then they didn't need him. He was not going to hang around and watch her be miserable. He'd had enough of that.

He was a long distance down the road when he heard the sound of other motorbikes behind him. He took a quick glance back, and what he saw startled him.

There were three bikers behind him. Two of them were wearing helmets, but the third one wasn't, and what Logan saw of his face under the black bandana tied around the big head identified him quite clearly. He was the biker who had tried to pick a fight with him and Jubilee at the bar a week ago.

Logan growled low in his throat as he sped up, leaving the men behind, but not too far behind. He just wanted to put enough distance between them and himself so he could pick his own battleground. A fight was just what he needed to work his temper out on. Since he couldn't beat Scott up, this guy was the next best thing. He slowed until he got to an open area beside the road, just around a bend, then pulled over and parked along a grassy verge. There was a thick hedge along here, a hedge equipped with large, long thorns. He got off his bike, pushed it closer to the hedge, kicked the stand down, and leaned against it casually. Taking out his cigar, he lit it, and by the time the three bikers caught up with him, he was smoking it complacently.

They were looking for him on the road ahead of them, and as a result almost missed him completely. He called their attention to the shoulder with a whistle. "Hey! Ya lookin' for me?"

The three bikes came to a halt just past his little section of hedge. They turned their bikes (a Yamaha and a couple of Hondas, Logan noticed with a sneer; not a Harley like a real biker should ride) in a lazy circle until they were facing him, then they turned off the motors.

He gestured to the little pieces of crap they were riding. "Hey. Ya trash my bike fer parts for your little toys?" It was the surest way to get them angry and put them in a frame of mind to provide him with a real fight.

The leader, the man with the bandana, swung off his bike and eyed Logan up. "D'ya use parts offa yer chickie's bike t'fix yours?" he said, deriding the long hours of work Logan put into caring for his bike. Logan refused to rise to the bait.

"Did ya raid yer chick's kitchen drawer t' make yers?' he challenged back. "'Cause that's what it looks like from here. Looks like ya cut yer bike outta some tinfoil and silverware." He didn't have to pretend disdain for their imports; he'd always disliked the cheap Harley imitations. There was nothing better than a good Harley under you. Apparently Jubilee felt the same. He'd seen her bike; expensive; she'd had to save a lot to get it…but much better quality than the import she could have gotten for half the price. "And don't call her a chickie. She's worth more'n whatever piece o' trash yer goin' out with."

The man growled. Logan tensed imperceptibly but never broke his outwardly relaxed pose. His eyes were busy, scanning the man for weaknesses. "What's with the goons?" he nodded toward the other men. "Think yer so important ya gotta have an entourage?" He looked past the first man to the other two. "Looks like ya better take 'em back t' the factory ya got 'em from. They're missing something between the ears."

Before the leader could react to that taunt, the second man on the red Yamaha lunged for Logan, hands outstretched. He was obviously hoping to catch Logan off-guard, intending to wrap his hands around Logan's throat as Logan leaned insouciantly against the side of his bike.

Logan, however, had been watching the man. He saw the fast blink the man gave right before he launched himself into motion, the blink that betrayed his intended movement to someone as sharp-eyed as Logan. By the time he got halfway to Logan, Logan was no longer there.

Keeping himself low, Logan swiped his foot out sideways, catching the running man's foot in the crook of his own, tripping him and sending him stumbling face-first into the thorny bushes. The man was just barely saved from getting a face full of scratches by backpedaling furiously away from the maliciously sharp thorns.

The third man growled and lunged for Logan. Logan ducked under his swing, using his smaller size to his advantage to get under the man's guard, and gave him a savage punch in the ribs with one adamantium-knuckled fist. Not hard enough to break his ribs or cripple him permanently, or kill him; but just hard enough to send him down for a few minutes while Logan dealt with the other two men.

The second man had come back for another round. Logan tried a feint to the man's left side, but the guy was ready for a trick like it, and didn't fall for it. So Logan tried a tactic that usually worked for him; a low, hard, fast attack to the middle. He caught the man around the waist with both arms, bore him backward to the ground, and raised a fist to bash him in the face.

A hand caught his fist and hauled backward with surprising strength. The biker leader was behind him, grabbing his wrist, hauling him backward off the second man. He yanked his hand back, but the other man refused to let go. The second man reached upward, grabbing Logan's neck in both hands, trying to strangle him. Logan grabbed the man's hand with his other, keeping him from tightening his grip…but with each hand being held by one man, he wasn't making much headway.

"Let him alone!" He heard a voice shout from a distance. _Jubilee?_ he thought, but he couldn't see her past the men he was fighting.

Until a stream of brightly-colored plasmoids streamed past him and exploded in the second man's midriff.

The hands around his neck relaxed, and he took a deep breath, clearing the fuzziness around the edges of his brain as he turned almost instinctively to deal with the second man holding onto his wrist. He popped his claws, the razor-sharp, gleaming adamantium only inches from the man's face, and growled quietly, "Yer a pathetic excuse for a man. Why don't ya get on that cheap little piece of tinfoil ya got an' git outta here? Unless ya want six inches o' adamantium buried in yer gut."

The man shook his head carefully as he saw the claws, then more furiously as he heard his two friends being paffed repeatedly by those plasmoids. "We're going," he said, 'We're going. Don't gotta tell me twice." Logan released them, watched as they scrambled onto their bikes. As the leader revved up and pulled out, he called back over his shoulder, "I'll remember this, ya mutie freak!"

"Ya better!" Logan was about to lunge toward his bike, with every intention of pursuing the other three men, but a hand on his arm stopped him. "Let them go, Wolvie."

He turned to face the owner of that hand, who was absolutely the last person he really wanted to see at that point. Although his eyes were still aglow with anger, and he looked formidable, the young woman standing in front of him didn't shudder or turn away. Instead, she met his eyes squarely and said, "Like you said, they're lowlifes. Why do you want to waste so much effort on them?"

He didn't answer her. "What are ya doin' here?" he said instead, reaching out and maneuvering his bike out of the thorn bushes. "Y'oughtta be back at the mansion."

Jubilee started to pull her bike upright after having let it fall on its side in the dust. It had a few more dents in it, but it wasn't much the worse for wear. "I wanted to be with you."

He gritted his teeth. "Cyke…said ya weren't ta hang around me." It hurt. Hurt that, although Logan didn't like Scott, he'd thought Scott knew how important Jubilee was to him, and how he'd never ever let anything happen to Jubilee if he could prevent it. He would never put her in danger.

Jubilee sniffed in disdain. "Since when did I do what old One-Eye says?" She swung astride her bike. "And since when did you pay any attention to what he said?"

"I heard what Chuck said." He lit another cigar and stuck it in his mouth as he swung a leg over the bike. "Go home, Jubes." He revved the engine.

Jubilee abandoned her bike and walked over to stand in front of him, in the middle of the road. "No."

He tried again. "Go home, Jubilee."

"Nope." She folded her arms. "Not going. Nuh-uh. No way. Not till you tell me why you got your boxers in a bunch."

Logan growled in his throat. He was not about to admit to Jubilee that if Xavier decided he wasn't to hang around Jubilee, he would probably obey that edict. Simply because it came from Charles Xavier, the only man Logan respected and whose orders Logan would follow in this matter. "Go home, Jubes."

She remained where she was.

He sighed and swung off his bike, about ready to pick her up and move her bodily out of his way if that was what it took. Before he got halfway to her, however, he heard the sound of a car approaching the bend…at high speed. At the speed that car was traveling, the driver would take the turn with only inches to spare and wouldn't stop in time to miss hitting the young woman in the middle of the road.

Logan exploded into motion, rushing forward and grabbing Jubilee. Time seemed to slow as he ordered his feet to move. His body seemed to be moving in slow motion, but the car seemed to be moving preternaturally fast. He wrapped his arms around her and flung himself to the ground above her, sheltering her as he waited for the inevitable crunch of the car plowing into him. His adamantium bones were unbreakable; he would be in a world of hurt until torn muscles and ligaments healed and internal damage mended, but he would endure it if it kept Jubilee safe. He heard her scream in terror as she finally heard the car coming around the turn, and then gravel sprayed both of them in the face as the car went tearing around the bend and on past them. Her fists grabbed handfuls of his jacket, and he instinctively tightened his arms around her as he ducked his head, sheltering her under him, protecting her. His heart slammed around in his chest as he thought about how close a call that was, and he remained crouched protectively over her for a long time after the car had passed.

"Wolvie?" she said at last, timidly. "I can't breathe." He loosened his arms fractionally, but continued to hold her in his arms as he climbed to his feet. Scott was right. He was right. He wasn't good for Jubilee to be around. She would have been killed if that car had hit her…and she wouldn't have been out here for the car to hit her if it hadn't been for him. The near-miss was his fault.

He pushed her away from him, looking her over as she took a moment to dust the gravel from her clothes, and made sure she was all right. "Go home, Jubes," he said roughly, climbing onto his bike.

"But…Logan…" he heard the confusion in her voice as he revved up.

He ignored her, repeating harshly, "Go home! I mean it!" He peeled out of the little grassy area and headed off down the highway in the direction the car had been going. He heard Jubilee's soft, despairing cry behind him, but he couldn't bear to look back and see her, standing disconsolately in the middle of the road staring after him.


	9. White Water

Chapter 9: White Water

The next few miles or so of road passed with Logan barely seeing it, or the scenery around him. He was too busy cursing himself for dragging Jubilee up here and nearly getting hit by that car. It must have turned off on another side road soon after the near miss, because he didn't see it on the road ahead of him. It was just as well, because in the mood Logan was in right now, he would have pulled the car over and commenced to harass its driver for taking that turn at such a speed.

The land changed as he sped along the road, taking the well-known turns instinctively. For years he'd been taking this road up to Canada when he wanted to think, or just get away for a while. He knew the road almost as well as he knew the back of his hand.

Scott was right. After Jubilee had left him the note and run away, he'd convinced himself that if hanging around him was so important to her, he'd just have to do what he could to keep her safe. She had probably thought that the night in the hotel had been a bit overprotective, but she hadn't complained. He'd tried to be unobtrusive about how protective he was; hopefully she hadn't picked up on it. But he couldn't be there all the time, and this time, back there with the damn car almost hitting her, was too close. True, he'd saved her life…but her life wouldn't have been in danger to begin with if she hadn't been following him up here. So it was his fault. Scott was right, hanging with him wasn't healthy for her, and he couldn't protect her all the time. She was better off without him.

And that led to the question he'd been asking himself lately. Was it time to close up another chapter in his life, and leave the X-Men? The team would do fine without him; Jubilee was all grown up and hanging with him now was more of a liability to her; Jean was gone; what else was there for him back at the mansion? Only the fact that he liked finally having a place to call home; because he liked and respected Charles Xavier; and because, while he didn't really believe in Charles's Dream, it had been a worthy cause to fight for, a good excuse to get into those fights.

And of course, there had been Jubilee. She had started out, to him, as a way of atoning, in some way, for not being there for his foster daughter as she was growing up; Jubilee had been a way for Logan to assuage his guilt over his absence. But that had turned into a genuine fondness for the gum-chomping, loudmouthed, smart-aleck teenager who somehow managed to irritate and endear herself to him at the same time. It was part of the reason why he let her hang around…that and he felt sorry for the way the others treated her; like an unwanted spare tire. But later that had turned to genuine liking, and then love, though it had taken a long time to figure that out, and an even longer time to admit it to himself. But he did; there was no denying the fact. Not a romantic kind of love; he knew she'd had a crush on him, but he simply couldn't see her that way. He loved her as a true friend, one who had been with him almost every step of the way; from that first meeting in Australia till now. They had been some very interesting years. But she was all grown up now, and she didn't need him anymore.

The road terminated ahead in a rickety wooden bridge spanning the breadth of a roiling, white-water river. It had been a little shaky the last time he'd ridden over it, and time certainly hadn't done it any favors. He wondered if the weathered, rotting planking would hold the weight of his bike. He slowed the bike, came to a stop, and pulled over onto the shoulder of the road, soaking in the scenery while lighting himself a cigar. So lost was he in his thoughts that he almost missed the heavy, acrid, familiar smell of the huge, feral man slipping through the forest behind him. It was only when he took the cigar out of his mouth that he detected the familiar odor.

He tossed his head back, blowing smoke between his lips, and said "So ya gonna stand there all day, or are we gonna eventually get around to the point where I pound ya…again?"

"Only one gonna git pounded this time's you, runt," said the low, growly voice of Sabretooth behind him. Logan tucked his lighter in his pocket (a Zippo, with a naked redhead on it; Jubilee's present to him a while back.) He turned to see the familiar bulk of Sabretooth's body filling a gap between two trees at the verge of the clearing by the road. "Ain't none o' them X-freaks around ta keep me from trouncin' ya."

Logan looked regretfully at his cigar. What a waste. He'd just lit the thing, and it didn't look like Creed was going to let him finish it. He sighed and tossed it aside into the underbrush, then dropped into a fighter's crouch in front of the big yellow-and-brown furred creature. "All right, then, let's get this over with so I can get where I wanna go." He popped his claws out with that distinctive little _snikt_ sound they always made.

"Only place yer goin' is hell, runt," Creed ground out, dropping into a fighter's position himself.

Logan rolled his eyes. "Only one goin' t'hell's you, Creed," he growled.

Creed lunged. Logan stepped back, angling toward the side, out of Creed's reach. Creed bellowed and lunged for him again. This time Logan lunged for him, keeping himself low to the ground, reaching up with his claws and raking them across Sabretooth's ribs. The taller mutant had adamantium as well, so it wouldn't really hurt, but the sound of Creed's howl as Logan sliced open skin and flesh was quite satisfying. Even if the wounds did heal in the next second. Logan growled in his throat. The one thing he hated about that damn healing factor both he and Creed had was the fact that he couldn't really watch his opponent bleed.

But his howls of pain were so satisfying. And so Logan proceeded to wring as many of those howls as he could from Creed, by dint of inflicting as many wounds as he possibly could. As he slashed away, he reflected grimly that all of those sessions in the Danger Room actually had a purpose. He was in prime fighting shape, while Creed seemed to have gotten a little soft during the last few months since Logan had seen him. Certainly his reflexes were a little slower, and it felt to Logan that there was a little more flesh around the bigger man's ribs than there had been formerly. "Gotten soft, Creed?" he taunted.

"No softer than you, old man," Creed lunged for Logan again, this time catching Logan across his upper right arm with one set of claws. Logan bit his lip, trying to suppress the roar of pain as the strike left five deep parallel gashes all the way down to the bone of his upper arm. He pulled away just in time to keep Creed's adamantium claws from doing any damage to the adamantium coating on his bones, but it was deep enough to do some damage to the muscles and tendons in his arm…damage that would take more than a few seconds to heal, and would leave him vulnerable on that side.

He turned away from Creed, just slightly, trying to keep his left arm, with its set of claws, toward the other mutant, while cursing himself for being so careless as to have gotten injured. Creed, however, picked up the smell of blood from Logan's arm, and he did a quick feint toward the left side. When Logan lunged to block him from that side, Creed switched to the right, and slashed Logan's arm open even further. This time Logan did howl in pain. His left hand went to the now badly-slashed arm, leaving him unprotected for a moment.

A moment was all Creed needed. He swept in low, catching Logan around the middle, and tried to bear him to the ground behind him.

Too late, both men realized that their fighting had taken them too close to the wooden rails of the rickety wooden bridge. As Logan's weight, supplemented by Creed's, came bearing down on that rotted wood, it gave way. Logan suddenly found himself falling backward, Creed's greater weight and mass pulling him off Logan, and both of them plunged headfirst into the roiling, violent whitewater rapids below them.

Just before he hit the water, Logan thought he heard a feminine scream…

Jubilee had come on the two fighting men just as Logan sustained his first set of gashes to his upper arm. Her bike had broken down finally on the approach to the bridge, and for a second she had been about to turn back when the yells of two men and the clash of adamantium attracted her. She dropped her bike, ran forward…and was stunned into speechlessness when she saw Logan fighting Creed. Anger surged in her when Logan stepped back, cradling his arm, and she started to call out, to attract Creed's attention, when she saw him rush Logan. She saw Creed's weight break the rails; she saw the long fall through empty air down to the roiling river below. "LOGANNNN!!" She screamed after him, but her voice was lost in the roar of the water, and there was nothing he could have done to save himself anyway.

She couldn't let him go like that. She stood on the edge of the bridge, framed by the jagged edges of the railing, and took a deep breath. Then she jumped.

She hit the water at almost the exact same spot Logan had gone in. The shock of the cold almost drove the air from her lungs in a gasp, but she clamped down on that instinct and clawed her way to the surface, searching for Logan. It was hard to see anything through the tossing spray and foaming water, but she thought she saw a dark head above the water some distance away. She relaxed her body and muscles, letting the water toss her along its surface like so much flotsam. When she got downriver to where she'd seen the head, though, it was no longer there.

She felt a tugging at her ankles, and barely had time for a gasp of air before being pulled underwater. She realized it was the strong undercurrent, and was about to kick for the surface again when she suddenly realized if the current were strong enough to pull her under, it definitely would have pulled Logan under, too, especially with the weight of the adamantium bonded to his bones. Opening her eyes underwater was a risky venture; if a stray twig got hurled into her face at the last minute it could poke her eyes out, or worse. But she had to find Wolvie. She ducked under, swam right down to the bottom of the river using every ounce of strength she had, and scanned the river bottom.

The current down here wasn't as strong as the ones rushing over the surface, possibly because of the huge boulders scattered across the riverbed, breaking the water's flow and slowing it, And it was here that she found Logan, lying on the bottom half-wrapped around a large boulder. She swam toward him as best she could, kicking and flailing, trying to make headway against the current. Finally she reached him.

His arm was still bleeding sluggishly, but of more alarm to her was the fact that he seemed to be unconscious. _Probably hit his head on a rock under here_, she reasoned as she touched him. She tried to tug him free of the rock, but something seemed to be keeping him from going anywhere. After a moment of fruitless tugging, she swam closer to the rock and saw that one foot was caught between two others. She tried to pull it free.

A hand caught at her wrist, and she turned, horrified, to see Creed hanging onto her. He was being swept downstream, but had unluckily caught hold of her, and he didn't seem like he was willing to let go. His eyes gleamed with a feral light as he tried to yank her away from Logan. Jubilee knew if she lost Wolvie now, she might not see him again. She kicked out with her foot, trying to break his grip, but the strong pull of the water slowed her foot's momentum, making her kick ineffectual.

She'd never tried to release her plasmoids underwater…but now was as good a time as any. She was perilously close to losing her grip on Logan, and she had nothing left to lose. She released a burst from the hand Creed was holding. They sparkled in the water a moment before exploding (surprisingly, they weren't wrenched away from her by the current; they stayed where she told them to stay) and exploded satisfactorily close to Creed's face. The resulting concussive burst from the displaced water pushed him backward with a force equivalent to a small (very small) bomb blast. It wasn't as much as Jubilee hoped, but it was more than she expected, and it served its purpose: Creed let go of her hand to bring his own hands up, trying instinctively to shield his eyes from the brightness of the blast, and the current caught him up and carried him away.

Her air was running out; she could feel her lungs striving for air. She had to get them both free, fast. Pointing at the rock, she released a tight stream of plasmoids directly at the second rock holding Logan's foot in place. It exploded, and she wrapped her arms around Logan's waist, lacing her fingers together behind his back, and kicked to the surface for air. The water carried them along, so she was already several yards downstream from the rock by the time her head, and Logan's, broke surface, but now she didn't care. She had Logan, and she would keep tight hold of him. Let the current carry them wherever it wanted; she would ride it out until the water became calmer.

And so she did, gasping and spluttering as water filled her mouth, her eyes stinging as water slapped against them as she was searching for a way out. But she kept her arms tightly wrapped around Logan's middle, despite the lancing pain as her knuckles scraped underwater rocks, as her elbows banged painfully against those same rocks and other pieces of debris. After a while, she just tucked her head against Logan's chest to protect her face and moved her feet just enough to keep them above water so they could breathe. Dazed from the pounding and roaring of the water, the drag of the current, and exhausted by her continual efforts, she almost missed the feel of the current relaxing its hold. When her feet touched a flat, pebbly river bottom, she used the last of her strength to pull them up onto the small pebbly bank, and collapsed beside Logan in exhaustion. "We made it, Wolvie," she mumbled as darkness claimed her.


	10. Understandings

Chapter 10: Understanding

Logan awoke to the feel of soft lips on his.

At any other time that would have been a hell of a way to wake up, but at just that moment his body decided that breathing was first on its agenda. He started to splutter and cough, hacking up the last of the water in his lungs and throat in an effort to clear them. The water in his sinuses also wasn't helping him identify whoever it was who was performing CPR on him.

Small gentle hands helped him roll over as he hacked and coughed and vomited water, and a gentle voice said, "Geez, Wolvie, give me a heart attack! After all you've been through a little river shouldn't stop you!"

Jubilee.

Logan stopped hacking and turned back around, to see Jubilee, of all people, crouched beside him helping him empty his lungs. Startled, he started to wheeze, and that just started another coughing fit. She held him gently as he emptied his lungs completely, then helped him lie back with his head supported on a pile of wadded cloth.

He studied her carefully as she went about gathering a few sticks that weren't too wet to set alight. She looked like she'd been halfway to hell and back. Her wet hair was plastered to her head, making her blue eyes look even bigger in her pale face. And yes, she was pale. Her lips were colorless. She was wearing only a thin white tank top that was so wet it was practically transparent, and showed the white bra she was wearing quite clearly. Her jeans were wet, soaked and clinging to her legs, and her feet were bare. He winced. The river pebbles might be water-rounded, but they were still plenty hard, and even now he could feel one digging him in the middle of his back. He slid an arm under his back to try and move it…and was confronted by another surprise.

His upper body lay on her yellow duster, now somewhat the worse for wear. His head lay on her t-shirt. And the remains of his own shirt were wrapped around his arm, which he remembered had gotten slashed by Creed in his fight. There were a few bloodstains on the fabric, but not many. He must be on the way to healing, though the slashed muscle still ached.

Jubilee lit the fire with a short burst of colored light, and fed it carefully with bits of dried grass and more twigs until it was crackling merrily. Only then did she turn to him. Before she could say anything, he spoke first. "I thought I told ya ta go home."

Hurt flashed in her eyes that that would be the first thing he would think of, covered quickly by a bright smile that didn't touch her eyes. "Nice to see you too," she said, looking down at the fire. "How are you feeling?"

He ignored that. "I thought I told ya ta go home."

"Oh, for pity's sake, Logan, since when did I ever do anything someone told me to if I didn't feel like it?" she sighed. "You're lucky I didn't go home. You might still be in that river."

Logan looked through the gathering darkness that made Jubilee's fire necessary, and saw, just beyond her, the river. It seemed shallow here, the rocky bottom close to the surface, no more than knee deep now. Very different from the raging white water that he had fallen into upriver. "Where are we?"

"I don't know," Jubilee sounded uncertain. "We were in the water for an awfully long time. I don't know how far downstream we got, and it's too late to go scout things out. Night's falling. I don't know where Creed is, but I'd rather not have to fight him in the dark if I don't have to." She saw his look. "What? If you made it it's a pretty sure bet he did. He wasn't injured like you were; he could have gotten himself out when the water got calmer."

_Breathe, damn you_, Logan told his lungs sternly, and after a moment the tightness in his chest eased. He still took a few more breaths; his entire chest had tightened when Jubilee said the word 'we'. "'We?'" he asked her. "'We' as in you an' me?"

"Yeah," Jubilee said. "I saw you go in, and I jumped in after you."

Logan stared at her, speechless. She had jumped in after him. So that _was_ Jubilee he'd heard scream his name before he hit the water. She'd jumped in. And from the very fact that she'd caught him meant that she must not have even hesitated. "Jubes…" He was at a loss for words, and finally settled for a simple, "Thank you." It wasn't much, but there wasn't much else he could say after she had made a sacrifice like that. She could easily have been killed in the river; the current was strong, and the riverbed was lined with boulders. He remembered the current throwing him up against one hard enough to knock him out. "Ya shouldn't've."

Jubilee looked at him, and smiled gently. "Silly Wolvie," she said, her hand reaching out to grasp his. "You're the most important person in my life. How could I let you go without trying to get you back? I couldn't lose you, Logan. I'd die if I lost you."

"No you wouldn't," he said gruffly as he studied the tattered remains of his shirt wrapped around his arm, so she wouldn't see the tears that sprang to his eyes at the soft tone of her voice. She was the most important person in his life, too, although she'd never know it. It was part of the reason why he was so determined to keep her from harm. And here she'd gone jumping into it headfirst because he was in trouble. "You'd be okay."

"Yeah. Okay, like I was okay before I met you and the others in Australia." She sighed. "Logan, when are you going to realize that you don't have to wrap me in bubble wrap and get all overprotective on me? I can handle myself. I handled myself just fine after I ran away from my foster parents…and when you were recovering from what the Reavers did to you, I kept you hidden, and all those other little times over the years. And now. I pulled your fat out of the fire this time, Wolvie, and you can't deny that. So stop treating me like I'm a helpless little girl who has to be protected."

Logan stared up into the darkness for a moment, thinking. She was right. She had managed perfectly fine on her own before the X-Men had picked her up. And she'd done just fine over the years for herself both when she was with him, and when she wasn't. She'd escaped from the Hulkster base by herself. He hadn't rescued her from the base, he'd just rescued her from the Sentinel who had been trying to terminate her. She might not have an adamantium skeleton and a healing factor, but she was every bit as strong as he was. She had survived Bastion, too; very few other people he knew could have endured what she had. And the experience, instead of shattering her, had simply tempered her even more, like a sword going through the forge to be shaped.

"Jubilee," he said finally. She turned away from the fire she was tending, and looked at him questioningly. "I'm sorry," he said quietly, sitting up. "I'm sorry fer the way I been treatin' ya. Yer right. Yer not a helpless little girl, an' I'm sorry fer treatin' ya that way."

Jubilee came over to sit beside him, wrapping her arms around him. "It's okay, Wolvie. I know why you've been doing that."

"You do?" He wrapped his arms around her in a hug.

She nodded. "Charles told me. He said that while you'd never tell me yourself, I was the most important person in your life too. I figured that's why you get so overprotective sometimes."

"Yeah," Logan said. "It's just…I care 'bout ya, Jubes, an' the very thought o' losin' ya hurts more'n the fact that I lost Mariko an' Silver Fox. I couldn't bear it, Jubes. All the other people I lost in my life…includin' Jean…losin' ya would be the worst. I missed ya when ya went up t'Massachusetts."

"I missed you too."

They sat in silence for a while, then Logan said quietly to her, "Jubes?"

"Yeah, Wolvie?" she said sleepily.

"It's kinda gettin' cold, an' yer shiverin' a bit. Put yer coat back on, okay? It ain't doin' a lot ta cushion the rocks anyway."

She gave a chuckle as he got up and handed her the coat. She had to get up herself to put it on, and Logan picked up her shirt too. As he did so, he noticed it was torn. He looked for the other half of the shirt…and saw it wrapped around Jubilee's left foot, almost hidden under her pant leg. "Jubes…"

She looked down. "I hit it against a rock underwater and twisted it. It's a little swollen, but it's not bad."

"Oh, Jubes." He pulled her back down beside him, and started working the soaked, wet denim up over her calf so he could unwrap the makeshift bandage. She was right, he decided when he saw it. Nothing a few days of rest wouldn't cure. But it was swollen, and that explained her pallor. "Yer right. It ain't bad." He rewrapped her ankle, and when she made a move to get up, he held her down. "But I want ya ta keep it easy."

She looked at the tattered shirt wrapped around his arm, and started unwrapping it. Underneath the skin and flesh was whole, healed…but it still ached fiercely, and she knew it even if Logan wasn't showing it. "So you take it easy here. At least till it heals up completely."

He grinned at her as he reached for another twig to feed the tiny fire she had made. They sat side by side, in companionable silence for a while, until Logan absently reached for another twig and realized there was none left. "We're outta firewood," he said to her.

She stood up, and he pulled her back down. "Logan," she said in a warning tone.

He shook his head. "This ain't bein' overprotective, Jubes. This is common sense. We're gonna have ta start workin' our way up the river tomorrow an try ta figure out where we are, so ya better give that ankle as much rest as ya can. I got two healthy legs, an' usin these newly healed muscles t'collect wood ain't gonna hurt that much. Ya sit here, an' I'm gonna be back soon."

True to his word, he was back soon. By then, the fire had died completely out, due to the gentle rain that had started to fall, and Jubilee was shivering even harder. Logan moved their campsite back into the treeline, under a pine tree that had fallen against another, providing a small spot of dryness under its drooping boughs to build a fire. He started it properly this time, with pine needles and kindling before adding twigs, and Jubilee set it alight. Then he added more twigs and some slightly larger sticks until it was crackling merrily. "And that's how ya make a fire," he said finally, sitting back on his heels and looking at her. "Remind me sometime t' take ya campin'."

"Mmm-hmm." Jubilee was leaning up against the fallen tree her eyelids heavy with sleep. Logan carefully gathered a bundle of pine needles to make her an impromptu pillow, and she gratefully laid her head down on it. In moments she was asleep.

Logan couldn't sleep, however. Creed might still be out there, somewhere. He sat by the fire for a long time, thinking, watching the forest and watching Jubilee sleep. Finally he dozed too, still tired from the long day. Only to be awakened, in the middle of the night, by…

**Logan! Jubilee! **A feminine voice called.

He snapped awake, instantly alert. That hadn't been a vocal call, but a telepathic one. He jumped to his feet, looking around. _Emma?_

**Logan! Jubilee!** It was definitely Emma's mental voice.

Behind him, Jubilee scrambled to her feet, wincing as the effects of sleeping on the hard ground made itself felt. "Frosty?" she called into the still air. "That you?"

"Jubilee!" And here came Emma, impeccably dressed as usual in white jeans that were spotless, and a long white coat. Logan felt grubby, in his waterlogged, dirty clothing. Damn the woman, how _did_ she manage that? "Logan! What happened?" She stared at both of them, at their disheveled appearances, then shook her head. "Never mind. We'll talk later when you're both back at the mansion."

Logan looked at Jubilee. Jubilee looked at him. Then they both grinned. Jubilee dispersed her 'pillow' as Logan doused their little fire, and they both followed Emma as she found a trail that would take them out of the forest and to the van waiting to take them home.


	11. Movie Night

Chapter 11: Movie Night

"Popcorn?"

Jubilee held up the bowl, full to the brim of hot, steaming, buttery popcorn. "Extra butter and salt, from Emma's private stash," she said with a grin.

"Pizza?"

She nodded toward the two boxes stacked atop one another. "Large pepperoni, large sausage," she said. "They were having a two for one deal."

"Beer?"

She grinned and reached into the cooler beside the couch. "Twelve pack of Molson." She handed Logan a bottle. "Now what movies did you get?" She leaned over and grabbed the bag from him, rifling through it. "Ooh. The Ring. Haven't seen that one yet. The commercials for it on TV looked creepy." She looked up at Logan. "Have you seen it yet?"

"Nope. First time for both o' us." Logan tossed back a mouthful of his beer as she continued to rummage in the bag. Any time now. Remy should be coming in any time now…

"Resident Evil! Oh, Ange and Ev tried to get Paige and me to watch that once and we thought it was so totally gross so we didn't. But I'll watch it if you want to."

And at just that moment, Remy popped his head around the doorframe and gave Logan a wink and a nod. Logan grinned back and nodded, and Remy's head disappeared. Jubilee, engrossed in the contents of the bag, never saw the Cajun.

"Hey." Logan took the bag out of Jubilee's hand. "Come with me for a moment."

"Why? What's up?" Jubilee was comfortable on the sofa, and she didn't want to get up, but Logan wasn't taking no for an answer. He shoved her slippers at her, waited a few seconds while she put them on, and started to the garage. Jubilee, her interest piqued by his behavior, followed him.

It was a warm fall night outside. The rain had just begun, a light mist that wasn't enough to get them wet yet but soon would be. The old maple behind the garage was turning a bright yellow, and its color guided Jubilee and Logan through the darkness to the garage. Logan opened the door, reached for the light switch, and flipped it on.

"What? I don't see…" Jubilee walked into the garage, took a look around.

Logan gave an exasperated sigh and gripped her shoulders, turning her to look at the motorcycle corner.

"Logan? What…whose bike is that…." She turned to look at him, and he let the broad smile that had been hovering around his lips finally show through.

"Yers, darlin'. Don't ya recognize it?"

Jubilee stared back at the bike. "But…I thought you said…it wasn't fixable…" She trailed off, going to the bike, running her hands over the smooth, polished, gleaming dark-blue paint.

Logan watched her with a grin. After Emma had picked them up in the van, Remy had gone out with Logan and the trailer to pick up his and Jubilee's bikes while Hank bandaged her ankle. His was still where he'd last left it, in perfect shape. Jubilee's bike, however, hadn't been in the best of shape when she took it out to go follow him, and when he saw it lying on its side, dented and forgotten, he marveled at her tenacity. Her footprints were clearly visible in the dirt, too; she had dropped her bike, run out onto the bridge, and jumped off. There was no hesitation, no stopping. He was shocked.

"She love you, Logan," Remy had said as they hauled the dented, battered hulk onto the trailer. "She love dat bike…but she love you more. I don' know anybody who would jump into a river to save my _derriere_; Jubes probably de only person in de world who goin' to do dat for you. Don' let dat slip away, Logan. Love like dat is very hard to find."

Her bike, when they got back to the mansion, proved in very bad shape. The engine was completely busted. Logan couldn't fix all of that himself, so he told Jubilee that her bike was unfixable. She had looked sad, then she said to him, "At least I still have you." That had brought a lump to his throat. The next day he'd taken her bike to Max's, a shop in the Village that specialized in bike restoration, and had it completely fixed. Max'd put a new engine in, added more parts, and then did a custom paint job as per Logan's instructions. Remy had gone out this afternoon to pick it up while Logan distracted Jubilee with the promise of a movie night (with rented movies, as a way to make up for missing the other one) and then Remy and Bobby had sat in the garage for the better part of an hour polishing and cleaning the bike until it looked like it had just come off the showroom floor.

Jubilee turned toward him, tears in her eyes, as she trailed a hand down the side of the gas tank. Logan had had three claw marks painted down the side, with painted-on bits of silver metal peeling away from it. It looked as though he had taken his claws and scored each side of the bike…except it was painted on. He had to admit that the paint job looked pretty damn good.

The breath rushed out of his lungs as Jubilee barreled into him at her fastest pace (she could still run pretty fast, even on a slight leg limp) and proceeded to hug the breath out of him. "Oh Wolvie I love you it's the most gorgeous present I could have gotten besides you I was totally not expecting it it's so beautiful!" All in one breath. Logan hugged her back, tightly. "Glad I could make ya happy, Jubes," he said quietly. "Least I coulda done fer ya after ya saved my life."

"Oh, Wolvie." Jubilee leaned back and looked at him. "I didn't do it 'cause I wanted thanks from you, I did it because I love you. I'll always be here for you, Wolvie, just like you've always been here for me."

His face darkened as he touched the tiny scar at the back of her neck, where the mind-sifter Bastion had used on her had rubbed her scalp raw and left a scar. "I ain't always been here fer ya, darlin'," he said glumly.

"You're only human, Wolvie," Jubilee said quietly, pinning him with blue eyes so full of love and forgiveness that he felt that lump rising in his throat again. "You can't be everywhere all the time. You can't watch over me all the time. Stop blaming yourself for not being there, Wolvie. Because I don't."

He looked at her for a long moment, reading the trust, the love, the deep friendship that had built up between them over the years in her eyes, and the tension and distance of the past few years melted away. She would try to be there for him, as he would try to be there for her. And if they couldn't, well…

He fished into his pocket for the little object he'd taken from his drawer earlier. After she had shoved it into his hand that day by the pool, he hadn't had the guts to give it back to her…and he hadn't, for some reason, been able to throw it away either. It was only a little silver piece of jewelry, anyway. If one of his enemies saw it, they would know that Logan had someone who cared about him, who loved him, and would avenge his death if they killed him. And Jubilee was fully capable of doing it, too. If she could jump into a river after him with no surety that she would make it out alive…oh, whoever got on her bad side would have more to deal with than they could ever know. "Here," he said, dropping the little silver 'L' dog tag, on its chain, into her palm. "If I can't be with ya in body, least you'll know I'll be there in spirit." When she hesitated, he pulled his dog tags out from under his shirt, and showed her the third little silver one, the 'J' tag, hanging beside his old ones. Jubilee flashed him a look of pure happiness, then clasped her own necklace around her neck.

"Let's go for a ride," she said impulsively.

He grinned at her. "Not really dressed for it, darlin'," he said. "And it's rainin' outside. An' all them goodies ya got back at the house're gettin' cold. Pizza, especially. An' I went an' rented all those movies fer ya, don't ya wanna watch them?"

Jubilee laughed, throwing her arm around his waist. "How could I pass up a movie night with my best pal?" she said, heading for the door. "Let's go. We'll go riding tomorrow."

Remy was sitting comfortably on the end of the couch, with the bowl of popcorn in his lap. "Which movies you get, _chere_?" he asked, completely ignoring (apparently) Logan's glowering presence beside her.

"Hey. It's our movie night. Scram, Gumbo," Logan warned. "Got those movies fer Jubes an' me, not Jubes an' you."

Remy looked slightly miffed. "After de way you blow her off de las' time, I'm surprised she goin' to do anyt'ing wit' you," he said dryly.

Jubilee attacked him, her fingers busy tickling along his ribs. "I forgive easily!" she said as Remy howled in laughter. "Especially when it comes to Wolvie!"

Remy hauled himself up off the couch, looking sheepish. "All right, all right! Remy know where he not wanted." He fled the room to Jubilee and Logan's mingled laughter, and they both plunked down on the couch.

Jubilee snuggled up next to Logan as he slipped the DVD in the player.

For a long time after the movie ended, Logan sat staring at the blank screen in the darkness, listening to Jubilee's even, quiet breathing. It had been a while since they'd done one of these; he was surprised to find how much he'd missed it. The way she burrowed into his side during the scary parts, the small sarcastic comments she'd make when a part was especially cheesy—he missed that. "You were right, Gumbo," he said into the darkness finally, knowing Remy was there without having to see him. "Love like this is really hard ta find. I don't think I've ever had it like this from any woman. Just Jubes."

"Right," said a dark form by the dark doorway, and there was the flicker of a lighter as Remy lit his cigarette in complete defiance of the non-smoking rule in the mansion. "Remy never fin' dat before. If you got it, hang onto it."

"She said she's always going to be there for me, Rem. But I can't always be there for her."

"She not always goin' to be dere for you neit'er, Logan. But she goin' to try. And not'ing stopping you from goin' after her if she get into trouble, too."

Logan looked down at the sleeping Jubilee in his lap. And she really was sleeping, not the feigned kind he knew she could fake. Her breathing told him that. "I'd go to hell for her," he said. "An' back, too."

"I know," Remy said. He gripped Logan's shoulder gently. "Why not take her upstairs to bed? Remy clean up here."

Logan bent over Jubilee. "Hey, Jubes?"

She stirred. "We just had one yesterday morning, Scott," she mumbled, still half-asleep. "Not again."

Remy stifled his snicker as Logan grinned. "Jubes, it's me. Last movie's over, it's time for bed."

Jubilee's blue eyes opened sleepily. "Oh. Okay." She climbed out of the depths of the couch, waited for Logan to rise, then, half-leaning on him, left the room. Remy watched them go with an amused smile, and then turned back to the litter of beer bottles and empty pizza boxes on the table.


	12. The Danger Room

Chapter 12: Danger Room

"Mornin', Logan."

Logan was sitting at the kitchen table nursing a cup of coffee when Jubilee wandered in, yawning and rubbing her eyes. He grunted an incoherent reply and returned his attention to his coffee cup. Jubilee headed straight for the cupboards, grabbed a cup, poured herself a cup from the coffeepot, and sat down at the table with it.

Much to her surprise, Logan was reading the newspaper. "Didn't know you could focus on fine print this early," she mumbled. "I can't."

Logan raised his eyes over the rim of his cup and looked at her. "Wasn't readin' it as much as lookin' at the pictures," he told her. "An' I was lookin' at the movie listings. That new Resident Evil movie's out today, an' I wanted ta see when it was playin' so I could go an' see it."

"Do we have to?" Jubilee made a face. "Can't we go and see something normal like, oh, Benji or something?"

Logan gave her a surprised look. "Hey, who said I was takin' ya with me? I was plannin' on goin' alone."

Jubilee looked hurt. "You don't want me to come with you? But…I thought…oh…you did say 'I'…sorry…" She was floundering, her face pink with embarrassment, and Logan finally chuckled as he put aside the paper.

"Yeah, I was takin' ya," he said. "Just wanted ta see yer reaction. How come ya get all sniffy about the choice of movie, an' then ya get all upset when I say I ain't takin ya? Ororo did the same thing t'me once. Women!" He shook his head and took a sip of his coffee.

Jubilee, unable to think of a single thing to say, wrinkled her nose and settled for, "Men!"

They sat in companionable silence for some time, talking about the movies they'd seen the previous night. Jubilee admitted she'd had a few half-remembered bad dreams about one movie he'd rented, and he grinned sympathetically. "I'll never watch that again," Jubilee grumbled. "Lay awake for a couple of hours trying to get back to sleep before I finally did."

Logan frowned. "Why'd'n't ya come ta my room? Usually ya do when ya have bad dreams, an' I can make 'em go away."

Jubilee shrugged self-consciously. "I didn't want to wake you up."

Logan narrowed his eyes. "Try another one, Jubes. Ya know I don't mind if it's you."

Jubilee put her coffee cup down. "I've woken you up enough times. I'm a grown girl, I need to take care of my own problems."

"That don't sound like you." Jubilee started to shred a corner of the newspaper. Logan narrowed his eyes further. "Jubes?"

"Emma told Jubes she needed to stop barging in your room and waking you up," said a new female voice. "She said it wasn't right for a young lady to walk into a man's room uninvited."

Warren and Paige walked in, both yawning. Paige was wearing one of Warren's T-shirts and a pair of his boxers; Warren was wearing the same thing. Logan could tell Paige's shirt was Warren's; it had two large cutouts for Warren's wings.

Jubilee looked somewhat miffed. "Paige!" she exclaimed to her friend.

Paige shrugged as Warren brought her a cup of coffee. "What? Logan needed to know why you're going to suddenly act all prim and proper. And it's not like you're the only one Frosty said that to. She said much the same thing to me once. The difference is," Paige turned to Logan, "I ignored her. She got the message."

"It's kinda hard to ignore her," Jubilee mumbled from the depths of her coffee cup. "Especially when she's shouting it into my head at the same time she's shouting it in my face."

"She yelled at you?" Paige looked at Jubilee. "I didn't know she'd gone that far. Take my advice, Jubes. Ignore her. She'll come around to it eventually."

"I most certainly will not!" came an icy voice from the doorway. Emma stood there, clad in (as usual) the skimpiest of white underwear covered by the sheerest white robe she could find. Logan's lip curled instinctively. Emma was one of those women who oozed sexual pheromones with every breath she took; he could smell them but instead of making his body respond, it just irritated him more. "I'd appreciate it if you would not talk about me behind my back!"

Jubilee looked slightly apprehensive, but Paige waved it off. "If you don't want us talking about your orders behind your back, then don't give us orders we can't or won't obey," she said dismissively, picking up one of the pages scattered across the small kitchen table and feigning an interest in the weather in Montana.

"Young lady, I might have made an exception in your case, but certainly not in Jubilee's," Emma said coolly. "Logan is God knows how much older, and it simply isn't right. If I catch you—"

"You'll do what?" Logan rose from his chair, coming to stand in front of Emma. He'd never liked the White Queen, not since the old days when she was their opponent. When Charles had chosen her to run the Massachusetts Academy, he'd expressed his disapproval. And when Jubilee had been stolen away from the Academy by Bastion—and Emma hadn't even noticed—he liked her even less. And Scott had thoroughly disgusted Logan when the X-Men's leader had paired up with Emma after Jean's death. Emma was no Jean. "Ya better not even think 'bout doin' anything t'Jubes, Emma. Or yer gonna have ta settle with me. I don't like ya. Never have, never will. Jubes was gone for a month! A month, an' ya never noticed. Ya didn't look for her or anythin'. If ya wanted ta take an interest in her health, ya shoulda done it then an' maybe saved her a ton o' misery. Not now, when she's finally found a little happiness."

"There were other things going on at the time!" Emma said, her face turning pink. "There was a lot of confusion. The Academy was in shambles, half the students were missing…she should have stayed in the school, with the others, where she was supposed to be—"

Logan exploded. "Don't ya dare try an' blame this on Jubes! She was a kid, you were the adult who was supposed ta watch over her an' keep her safe! Nothin' like this ever happened ta her when I was with her! So who do you think she's safer hangin' around with—"

"STOP IT!" Jubilee stood up so abruptly her chair fell backwards to the floor with a loud crash. "Stop it! Stop talking about me like I'm not here!" She took a deep breath as if t say something else, saw Logan, Emma, Warren, and Paige staring at her, and turned and fled the kitchen by the back stairs. Logan shot an evil look at Emma and started after her, but Paige caught his arm. "Let her go. Let her cool off. She'll talk later when she's ready."

Logan wandered down to the Danger Room later for a workout…and was surprised to see it in use. Wondering a little, he tapped the keypad to let himself inside, and saw Jubilee doing splits on the balance beam. The Danger Room's tactile holograms were set up to simulate a gymnasium for gymnasts, complete with balance beam, uneven bars, large floor mat, and vaulting horse.

She pushed herself up in a handstand and did splits in the air, this time sideways. He winced as his groin muscle twitched. Those looked like they hurt; his toes curled in response to the contortions she was putting herself through.

She knew he was there, but she didn't bother looking up until she was right side up again,. Then she sighed. "I'm sorry I yelled this morning, okay?" She sat down on the beam and fiddled with the little canvas slippers she wore. "I shouldn't have lost my temper like that."

Logan strolled across the 'gym' and hoisted himself onto the beam to sit beside her…and realized it wasn't as easy as it looked when he almost fell off the other side. He steadied himself with his hands, gripping the thing securely, and turned his attention to Jubilee. "I'm sorry too, darlin'," he said gruffly. "I been wantin' ta say that to Frosty for a while, ever since I knew it was her negligence that let Bastion kidnap ya out from under her nose, but I just didn't get the chance to, until today."

"Well, to be fair, Logan, there _were_ a lot of things going on at the Academy at the time," Jubilee said, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. Logan wondered how she could do that on the beam; he was having trouble just staying on the damn thing.

"Who wants t'be fair?" he grumbled, easing one thigh further up on the narrow piece of equipment. "This is you I'm talkin' about. My pal, my sidekick. My friend. I don't wanna be fair. I wanna go back in time somehow an' keep ya from wanderin' off, get there at the moment Bastion saw ya, an' bust his ass 'fore he ever laid one slimy paw on ya."

Jubilee sighed. "Truth? I wish you could, too. I wish I could forget that whole month. I wish I could forget everything that happened. But I can't. Every time I look at myself in the mirror, I remember all of it. And it makes me sick sometimes. If only I'd gone in a different direction, if only I hadn't gotten separated from the others, if only…but nothing's going to change what did happen, I have to live with it." She dropped her eyes to her toes, wiggled them in the canvas slippers. "And sometimes that's the hardest thing to do. I feel like…I lost something of myself, Logan. Not just my innocence…that I was going to lose anyway, as time went on. But…there used to be a little tiny part of myself, inside, kind of a center of calm inside me that I could draw on when I needed an escape…and I don't have that anymore. I can't find it inside me. Haven't been able to since…everything happened." Her tone was wistful. "That's why I come here. I keep thinking I might find it here, like I used to…but I never do." She sighed. "And anyway, it's good for a workout." She got to her feet and stood easily on her end of the beam.

Logan stared at her feet, placed in front of each other easily on the beam. "Your center of balance looks fine to me," he grumbled. "Don't look like you're having problems."

Jubilee broke out into laughter, suddenly, unexpectedly. "It's not as hard as it looks," she said. "Well, maybe it can be sometimes…but just standing on it isn't difficult." She jumped off and started tugging at his shoelaces. "Come on. I'll show you." Logan protested, but Jubilee pulled off his shoes and socks and pulled him up. "Here. Hold onto my hands."

Logan felt somewhat foolish standing on top of the beam in bare feet, wobbling precariously on it. He wasn't afraid of heights, but the floor did look rather far away from up here. "Jubes, are you sure…" he said.

Jubilee took his hands. "Don't look down," she said. "Just concentrate on putting one foot exactly in front of the other. I realize it's harder for you, your foot's wider than the beam. That's why they don't put guys on the balance beam. Guys get rings, and parallel bars, and pommel horse." She nodded to a pair of rings hanging from the ceiling. Logan couldn't imagine how anyone could do anything with rings hanging from a ceiling…and he wasn't really curious to find out. "Don't look down, and watch where you're putting your feet!"

Too late. He'd already started shifting his weight from one foot to the next, and two of his toes on the supporting foot weren't centered on the beam. With a startled yell, he pitched over the side. His hands tightened on Jubilee's instinctively, and he ended up pulling her over with him. "Logan!" Jubilee shouted in surprise.

He hit the mat flat on his back, and a heavy weight landed on top of him, sending the breath whooshing out of his lungs. When he finally opened his eyes, he saw Jubilee lying on top of him, laughing so hard her shoulders were shaking, and he started to laugh too. She fell over on top of him, shaking with laughter, and he hugged her as he rolled her over. Now he was on top of her.

"Gee, Logan," Jubilee teased as she got her laughter under control. "Someone might walk in here and get the wrong idea." She reached up and pushed a displaced tendril of hair off his forehead.

And as if on cue, the door to the Danger Room swished open, and Logan closed his eyes as he caught the scents of the five people who stood there; Scott, Emma, Bobby, Remy, and Hank. Logan muttered an expletive under his breath as he rolled off Jubilee and gave her a hand up, and they both turned to see the others. There was surprise on Remy and Hank's face, followed by approval; simple surprise on Bobby's, and frank disapproval on Scott and Emma's faces. Before any of them had a chance to say anything, Jubilee called out, 'End simulation,' and the apparatus disappeared. She picked up a towel and her bag, picked up Logan's shoes and socks, and said cheerfully, "We were just finishing. It's all yours." And she shoved Logan's shoes in one hand, took the other in her own, and walked out of the room, tugging him along behind her.

They pushed past the five people in the doorway and headed for the stairs that would take them to the living levels of the mansion. Logan could feel Scott's steely gaze boring into his back all the way to the stairs.


	13. The Fight

Chapter 13: Fight

Jubilee sighed as she settled onto the grass under the maple sapling. She propped her book open in her lap, but didn't start reading right away. Instead she looked back at the mansion thoughtfully, seeing someone crossing in front of one of the upper windows.

The only thing that traveled faster than light was news, especially in a mansion full of people. The gossip that she and Wolvie had been 'doing it' wasalready common knowledge by the time she got out of the showers, and neither she nor Logan had been particularly happy about it. Logan had stumped off to his rooms muttering something about 'flamin' telepaths' (which she wholeheartedly agreed with) and she had gone off to find some peace and quiet. She picked a book off her nightstand and limped off to the Rec Room, only to find Remy there, playing pool with Rogue. "You an' Logan gonna get togethah, sugah?" Rogue had asked sweetly, and Remy had grinned. Annoyed, she had left for quieter parts.

She retreated to her room…but Paige and Warren were doing something in Warren's room that necessitated a lot of noise, and she couldn't concentrate. Finally she left the mansion altogether and came out to her favorite spot under the trees. Now she was settled with her back to the trunk of the tree and preparing for a nice quiet afternoon.

Until the trees rustled and Sabretooth stepped out onto the grassy lawn.

She tensed, but otherwise didn't move. There were motion sensors all over the grounds, after all; whoever was in the control room at the moment would know there was an intruder, and shortly Logan would be out here to beat Creed up. Again. Until the cavalry got here, she just had to keep him busy. "Haven't had enough ass-whuppin', Creed?" she said, feigning boredom.

"Wasn't me getting pounded on," Creed said dismissively, his eyes boring into hers. "Case ya didn' notice, yer precious Logan was the one gettin' beat up."

Jubilee had to fight hard not to shudder. That feral, predatory glare…she'd seen that look before, and it was closely connected to the most traumatic incident of her life. No. She wouldn't think about it. "Coulda fooled me. Looked like you were getting banged up some, too." She carefully eased the book off her lap, sensing that Creed was about to make his move.

He did, a moment later. He launched himself at her, hurtling forward with his arms extended, reaching out to grab her. She skittered out of his reach, retreating to the other side of the tree, and listened for any sounds coming from the direction of the mansion._ Come on, guys, where are you_? she said to herself as she sidestepped quickly, to keep the tree between Creed and herself.

Creed sprang, and she retreated back around the tree again. It took a moment to realize that the target wasn't her, but the tree. Creed ran into it, colliding with it, knocking it over—it was only a sapling, it couldn't stand up to a collision with a big feral mutant with adamantium bonded to his frame. The tree started to fall, and she ducked around it, her attention no longer wholly on the large, snarling man she had been fighting. She ran straight into him, and found herself trapped in a steely grip. _Adamantium,_ her brain informed her coolly as she threw her arms outward, trying to break his grip and free herself.

She might as well have tried to break steel. It wasn't doing much good. She dropped her hands to her sides, aiming her plasmoids at a sensitive part of his anatomy, and released a burst of concentrated, high-intensity sparks. She heard him howl in anger and pain as they exploded against his groin, due to the way he was holding her up, and he released her. She started to run, but he caught her after a few steps. He swiped a clawed hand across the back of her head, a swipe that caused pain to explode against the back of her scalp, and she fell forward against the fallen sapling, dazed from the pain in the back of her head and the collision of her forehead against the tree trunk.

"JUBES!" She heard someone yell, but her head was throbbing too hard, and she hurt too much to try and move. She lay against the tree, eyes closed, trying to fight the nausea from the blow to her head. The X-Men were here, they could take care of things now. The last thing she was aware of before she blacked out was the warm trickle of blood at the back of her neck.

Logan was in his room taking a nap when the mansion's alarms went off. He went from deep sleep to instant wakefulness in barely half a minute, and grabbed his shirt as he stepped out into the hall. "What's going on?" he asked, as he started running after Bobby, a few short feet ahead of him in the hallway.

"Creed…he's out on the back lawn, he triggered the motion sensors by the woods," Bobby called as he ran.

Logan hurtled out the back door of the mansion, quickly catching up with Scott as the taller man ran out toward what looked like a fallen tree. Overhead, Ororo and Rogue and Warren were already airborne, but Logan lost track of where everyone else was as a different scent permeated his nostrils. Blood. And not just anybody's blood, but _Jubilee's_!

Paige was ahead of him, having been outside playing basketball with Rogue when the alarms had gone off inside. He heard her anguished scream, "JUBES!" before he got there, and the panic in her voice lent wings to his feet. He outdistanced Scott swiftly, and came to a stop a few feet away from the tree aghast.

Jubilee lay crumpled against the tree, and the back of her shirt was damp with blood. Her hair was slick with it, and he sucked in a harsh breath as he saw how still she lay. Beside him, Paige was husking, the peculiar _shripp_ of her splitting skin accompanying her breathless panting. He popped his claws, the _snikt_ loud in the sudden silence, and he snarled, "Ya done it now, Creed. Ya made me mad. Get away from her!"

Creed smiled, lifted the hand with its bloodstained claws to his mouth, and licked Jubilee's blood from the tip of one claw. "Yeah? An' what are ya gonna do if I don't, runt?" he stepped closer to the tree, giving Jubilee a kick. Her limp body rolled over, and Logan saw the pallor of her face.

He lunged in, quickly, claws and arms fully extended. Creed dodged, still putting himself between Logan and Jubilee, and Logan's temper rose to the killing edge. Jubilee was hurt, bleeding, she needed help, and Creed was between him and her…

A beam of pure red energy caught Creed high on the shoulder, knocking him backward a few feet. "Get out of here, Creed!" Scott snapped out, hand on his visor, ready to open it again. "Or—"

"Or else," Creed sneered, ignoring the smell of singed hair and skin. "Please. I heard it all a'ready. Not like you X-wimps are gonna be able ta do nothin' bout it…"

Something hard smashed into the side of his legs, and he stumbled over a few steps before regaining his balance. By the time he looked around for what had hit him, Paige (in her diamond form) was already out of his reach and past his guard, and kneeling beside Jubilee. She caught Logan's eye, gave him a tiny nod, and placed herself between Jubilee and Creed, ready to defend her fallen friend.

Logan gave an inward sigh of relief. Good; Jubilee was alive and okay. If she'd been in danger, Paige wouldn't have switched her attention to the battle. He blocked everything out of his mind and focused his attention on Creed. "So. Wanna tell me what yer doin' here?" he growled.

Creed lowered himself into a fighter's crouch and watched Logan through slitted eyes. "I was takin' care o' some business when I ran inta ya on the road a couple o' days ago," he said. "And the frail over there jumped in after ya when we went in. I tried ta grab her underwater, keep her from savin' ya, but she got me with them sparkly things o' hers. It got me mad. I came here ta get even." He grinned. "Looks like I got her back, didn't I?"

"Like hell…y'did…" came a weak voice, and suddenly a stream of multicolored plasmoids came from behind him and knocked him forward a few feet. They weren't as powerful as they usually were, but Logan was still impressed that Jubilee could muster any sort of offensive when she was this badly disoriented. "Get the hell outta here, ya creep. Before my Wolvie takes a chunk outta yer hide." She was upright, though just barely, leaning against the tree, her hands extended. "Beat it."

Creed looked at Jubilee, at the hands extended in front of her, ready to do battle; then at Logan, still in a fighter's couch. At Paige, still in her diamond form and looking quite ready to commit murder; and at the X-Men, ranged behind Logan and Scott, all watching him. With a muttered growl, he turned and vanished into the underbrush, heading back out of Xavier's grounds the same way he'd come.

Logan briefly considered chasing after his nemesis, then thought better of it as Jubilee, sensing the danger was over, staggered. Paige caught her before she crumpled again, and then Logan was beside them both, taking Jubilee's other arm and looking into her eyes. Her pupils were dilated; it wasn't a good sign. "Jubes, are you okay?" he said as quietly as he could. She still winced and put a hand to her head. "Head…hurts," she whimpered. She frowned as she saw her hand come away, covered with blood…and stared at it for a moment before fainting dead away. Logan caught her before she could fall, scooping her up in his arms and starting for the mansion at a run, the other X-Men following behind him.

Most of them dispersed as soon as they came in, but Paige and Warren followed Logan down to the medlabs. Annie and Hank were both ready, having been warned in advance by Emma that Jubilee was coming. They bustled about, doing a great many things and saying a lot of things in medical codes Logan didn't understand, and wasn't interested in understanding. He sat beside her bed, trying to stay as close to her as he could and still not get in their way, and prayed that Jubilee would be all right. She didn't look like she was dying…but she didn't look so good, either.

Hank finally looked up from the examination he was doing of Jubilee's scalp. "She will be fine, Logan," he said, taking a moment to reassure his friend. "She has a slight concussion, from the subdural hematoma present on her frontal cranial surface, and lacerations to the hindpart of said cranial surface, which are deep and will require several days of recovery, but she will be fine. There may be some disorientation and unpleasant sensations from the nerves from the collision of her frontal lobe with the inner surface…"

"Hank!" Annie broke in. "Knock it off with the medical terminology! Logan, she'll be fine," the nurse said. "We'll want to keep her here and keep an eye on her concussion, and she's going to have a hell of a headache from her brain colliding with the inside of her skull, but she's going to be fine."

Logan much preferred Annie's diagnosis. Hank gave Annie a disgruntled look and muttered something about 'broadening one's vocabulary' but said nothing after that.

Jubilee moaned as she woke.

Her head ached, and there was a dull fiery pain across the back of her head. When she opened her eyes the only thing she could still see was darkness. She screamed weakly and lurched forward out of the bed, tears filling her eyes. Weak…she was so damn weak. She needed to eat to get her strength back, but the drugs Bastion had put in her food made her sick, and she could feel the nausea in her stomach and she wouldn't touch it unless she was forced to. Her legs folded under her, dumping her to the cold tiled floor of the operating room, and she began to cry helplessly, curling up on the floor. "No," she moaned. "Please, I can't tell you what you want to know…please, stop hurting me, let me go, I'm just a kid…"

A door opened, and quick footsteps crossed the room. A hand touched her shoulder. "Jubilee—" said a light, feminine voice.

Jubilee cowered away from the hand, flailing out feebly. "Don't hurt me anymore, please don't hurt me," she whimpered. "I'm just a kid, please, let me go, no more needles, oh, God, please, no more, I can't—"

"Jubilee!" came a different voice, and a hand touched her again. She tried to fight it off, crying again, but the hand refused to go away. Instead a voice spoke her name, and this time she recognized it.

"Logan…Logan?" She raised her head, but darkness was still the only thing she could see. "Logan, is that you? Where are you? It's so dark…I can't see…oh, God, I'm hallucinating again, he's not here, nobody's here, it's just me and Bastion, I can't give in, I can't…"

Logan bit his lip hard. The blow to her head must have triggered a flashback, and she thought she was in Bastion's base again. He looked at Annie helplessly, and Annie sighed. "Jubilee," she said, placing a hand on the girl's shoulder. "You're here, at the mansion. Logan's right here, he's not going anywhere. Bastion's gone. You're safe. He can't hurt you. You got into a fight with Sabretooth and got knocked out. There's swelling in your brain that's pressing down on your optic nerve, that's why you can't see. It'll go away in a few days. Come on, off the floor or you'll catch cold along with everything else that isn't working right. And I assure you, you aren't going to want to sneeze or cough with the headache you have now." She spoke in a no-nonsense tone, taking Jubilee's upper arm and pulling upward.

Logan took her other arm and said, "Come on, Jubes. Doc's orders. Don't wanna get Hank mad at ya fer gettin' a cold, do ya?"

Jubilee's glazed, unseeing eyes turned in his direction. "Logan? You're here? Are you really here?"

His voice was rough with emotion at the hopeful tone in her voice. He swallowed hard and told her, "Yeah, darlin', I'm here. Come on, Punkin. Back inta bed." Jubilee tugged her arms out of Annie's hand and reached out, exploring with her fingers. She felt his shirt, then went upward, until she felt his sideburns, and then the cowboy hat he wore. And as if the hat decided her, she fell against him, her shoulders shaking with sobs. Logan carefully steered her back to her bed, and Annie went to get a syringe.

As soon as Jubilee felt the alcohol swab touch her arm, she gasped and jerked her arm out of Annie's reach, her sightless eyes filling with terror. "No needles," she pleaded. "Please!"

Logan's heart twisted in his chest. He'd know Bastion had brutally abused Jubilee during her imprisonment at the base; he'd never asked her what really happened, and she hadn't volunteered the information. He hadn't said anything, deciding to leave the topic alone. Obviously, that approach wasn't working, because she still had some issues she hadn't worked through yet. He made a decision to confront her about it when she felt better.

Instead of injecting the sedative into Jubilee's arm, Annie emptied the syringe into Jubilee's IV, which the girl hadn't even noticed. "She'll be okay, Logan," the nurse said reassuringly. "The blow to her head just brought back some bad memories, apparently. I'll talk to Hank about having someone sit with her so she won't be this disoriented when she wakes up again."

"I'll sit with her," Logan said quickly.


	14. Interrupted Discussion

Chapter 14: Interrupted Discussions

"Logan?"

Logan dropped his sandwich on his plate and turned toward the bed. "Jubilee?"

Her eyes were open, and looking in his direction, although they were still glazed. "I can see you a little," she said. "Kind of a blur right around the side here." She sighed. "Did Hank say how much longer it was going to take for my vision to clear up?"

"No," Logan said heavily. He'd wondered about that, too. "He just said it would happen and you'd make a full recovery."

"Oh." She lapsed into silence. He reached out to her hand, sitting on the edge of the bed, but she drew it away. "You don't need to stay here, Logan."

He looked at her, the hurt on his face coming out in his voice. "Ya don't want me here?"

"I—I do, it's just—you have better things to do than nursemaid a silly girl who can't learn to keep out of trouble."

Logan grabbed her hand, held it tightly. "Jubes. It wasn't yer fault. Ya just happened ta be there in the wrong place at the wrong time. Don't blame yourself."

Tears filled her eyes. "Why is it always me?" she whispered, her voice shaking. "First my parents are killed because of a mistake, then Bastion, and then the Church of Humanity…why me?"

Logan sighed. "I ain't got an answer ta that, Jubes," he said quietly. "But Jubes…yer not always in the wrong place at the wrong time. You was there fer me in Australia. Ya been there for me when Mariko died and when I lost my adamantium. When Apocalypse turned me inta Death you broke me out of it; ya saved me from Mustang back at the Prospero clinic right after I'd plucked ya outta the desert; you were exhausted an' tired an' in pain, an' ya still came to help me. Not a lot o' people woulda done that; in fact, ol' One Eye was all for gettin' the heck out of Dodge. And then only a few days ago ya jumped inta a whitewater river ta save me. Not the first time ya done that, neither, if my ol' memory card reminds me right. So don't down yerself; ya been in all the right places when it counted. Ya always been there for me."

"I guess." But Jubilee still looked a little down.

"Here." Logan picked up the little bag of potato chips he'd brought down for his lunch and pressed them into his hand. "Hank'll probably have a fit 'bout food down here, but ya need ta eat. An' what his eye don't see his mind won't grieve over."

Jubilee fumbled with the packaging, managing after a couple of minutes to tear the bag open and pop one into her mouth. She grinned suddenly. "Barbecue flavored. My favorite." She stared into space for a second. "You know, it's funny, but back there, this was all I could think of?"

"Huh?" Logan frowned.

"I'd look at the horrible stuff they tried to get me to eat back at the Hulkbuster base, and this was the one thing I always wished I had instead."

Logan tried not to tense. It was the first time he'd heard her talk about her time in Bastion's prison, and he just knew there were a lot more stories she could tell about the place that she really needed to get off her chest. "Anythin' else?"

She jerked, startled, and shook her head almost guiltily. "No…I was just thinking aloud. Ignore it. I didn't mean for that to come out. I'm sorry." She picked up another chip, then put it back in the bag and handed it back to Logan. "I'm tired, and I want to rest."

It was a blatant dismissal, and Logan cursed inwardly. She'd finally brought down the wall he'd put up between himself and her; now he had to get through the wall Jubilee had built around herself to shut him out. "Jubes, ya can't keep on skippin' over the issue. Sooner or later yer gonna have ta face what happened. You know you can talk ta me."

The words hit her like a physical blow. He almost saw her flinch. "I'm fine," she said, turning over to stare at the wall and avoiding his glance. "I don't need to talk."

"I think you do." Logan said.

"I don't!" Jubilee flung back. "Logan, will you go? I'm tired." She closed her eyes and refused to look back at him. Unable to think of anything to say, he picked up his plate and left.

Annie was standing just outside. Logan was about to say something when she placed a finger over her lips and led him down the hall into Hank's office, and pointed to a chair. "Sit." He sat.

Annie sat down in a chair opposite him. "I'm not going to pretend to be a psychologist," she said, "But Jubilee has something she's been carrying around for a long time, and she needs to get it off her chest. I've tried talking to her about it, Hank's tried talking to her, but she won't open up.

"From what Hank's said she refused to allow him to examine her after she returned from the Hulkbuster base. In fact, she left soon afterward, and if she ever went to see a doctor there's no mention of it. A lot of it is moot now; after she received the transfusion of Warren's blood back during that Church of Humanity debacle most of the badly healed damage fixed itself. However, I did save the scans of her body I took before Warren's blood brought her back and fixed her, and Hank and I looked at the comparisons later. I can't show them to you, doctor-patient confidentiality—"

Logan nodded.

"—but I can tell you that there was a lot of improperly healed tissue in her body. Hank was up most of last night trying to figure what could have been done to her to cause the injuries we saw, and kept coming up blank. So did I. But it was extensive, and traumatic, and painful, and I really think she needs to talk about it. Even if you have to pin her down and make her talk. Hank said she comes to him sometimes for pills that will help her sleep. Not often enough for him to think she might become addicted to them, but often enough that he's a little concerned. The brain needs to dream, it's cathartic. But Jubilee's so afraid of her dreams she's taking pills to avoid having them. And it's not healthy, it's putting a lot of stress on her mind, and coming on top of everything else that's happened to her during her short life, I'm worried that she might snap. Anything you can do to get her talking would be a huge help to her."

"Mommy?" came a small voice by the door.

"I'm coming, Carter," Annie stood up. Before she left, though, she turned to Logan. "Think about it, Logan." He was thinking hard as he left the medlabs.

A few days later...

"Hey, Jubes?"

Jubilee looked up from the book she was reading. "Hi, Wolvie."

He motioned to the book. "Hey, should ya be reading with yer eyes still healin'?"

Jubilee sighed. "Hank says as long as I don't overdo it, I'm okay. But there aren't a lot of other things I can do, all of them require the full use of my eyes, and I only have minimal vision right now." She closed the book with a bang. "I have trouble just taking the stairs. My depth perception is all messed up." She sounded annoyed.

"Well, is sittin' an' talkin' on Hank's list o' no-no's?"

Jubilee actually laughed at that. "No, why? What did you want to ask me about?"

"When ya woke up in the medlabs after the fight, ya mentioned somethin' bout bein' afraid o' needles. An' Annie tried ta give ya somethin' ta help ya sleep an ya couldn't even let her do that."

"I just don't like needles." Jubilee drew her knees to her chest and hunched over them, staring at her toes.

"I don't like 'em either, none o' us do, but nobody has the kind of reaction like you did. Ya said when ya were disoriented, that Bastion used needles on ya. What did he do ta make ya so scared of them, darlin'?"

"I don't want to talk about it, Logan." Her tone was quiet, and serious. "And you don't want to know."

Now he really did want to know. "Yeah I do, Jubes."

She shook her head emphatically. "No, you don't. No one does." She began to rock back and forth, still hugging her knees. "No one wanted to talk about it, talk to me, after I came back, not even Jean. And she had said I could always talk to her about anything." There was so much bitterness in her voice Logan wanted to scream and pound something. Annie was right. Jubilee needed to talk about what was on her mind. He could hear the shakiness of her voice; if she got close enough to the edge…would she snap? He had, after his adamantium had been stolen from him. The pain, that sense of violation, had driven him into a feral, bestial state that had taken a long time for him to work his way out of. Jubilee had been with him then. She'd sat so many times, close but not touching him, talking about everything and nothing, giving him her words, her voice, her presence to hang on to as he tried to heal his shattered mind. And he had accomplished it, finally.

Did he want to see Jubilee like that? Her mind broken, driven mad by the weight of the remembered pain until there was nothing of her left? He knew he didn't. It would kill him to see her lost in her own mind. "Jubilee. I love ya. Ya can talk ta me 'bout anything. An' I do mean anything."

Jubilee looked up at him, her blue eyes meeting his in a penetrating gaze that seemed to see into his soul. He met the gaze unflinchingly. She opened her mouth to say something.

A flying body hurtled through the open window of the library, tearing through thin metal-mesh screens and shattering glass. Jubilee screamed and shrank back against the back of her chair, her still-blurry vision leaving her vulnerable to attack if one should come. Logan lunged forward, wrapping her in his arms as he plucked her up bodily and carried her to the floor behind the chair. After a moment, he poked his head up over the plush back.

Warren lay on the floor, groaning. Logan heard another whoosh of displaced air, and he saw, through the broken window, Rogue and Ororo hovering. "Warren? You okay?" Rogue called. Then she saw Logan. "Logan, sugah, whatevah are yah doing back there?"

"Where's the emergency?" Logan growled.

"Oh, we were just playing, and it got out of hand," Rogue said airily.

The door to the library burst open, and Bobby ran in. "Warren, hey, you okay?"

"I have a healing factor, Bobby, of course I'm okay!" Warren picked himself up and dusted his clothes off. "What I really want to know is," he held up the ball they'd been playing air football with and tucked it under his arm, "What are we going to tell Charles about this?"

There was silence, and then everybody started talking at once. Logan shook his head and turned to look down at Jubilee, only to find she was no longer there. He had no idea where she'd gone.

He cursed to himself. Damn Warren. He'd been just about to get inside Jubilee's walls, and now she'd probably put them up again. Another missed opportunity. Grimly he got up and started to head off toward her room, which was where he was certain she would be…and then detoured and headed for Xavier's office.

The door was open, and Xavier was sitting at his desk, holding a triangular crystal prism and looking at the rainbows thrown off its surface onto his desk. He looked up at Logan's tap, and raised an eyebrow. "If it's about the broken window in the library, I already know about it—" he began.

"Naw, it ain't that." Logan waved a dismissive hand. "I wanted to ask you something."

Xavier waited expectantly, one eyebrow still raised.

Logan took a deep breath. "I want ta take a short leave o' absence—"

Xavier dropped the eyebrow. "You've never needed my permission to take care of your own affairs, Logan," he said carefully. "Why ask now?"

"—and I want to take Jubes with me. After she's healed up some more, o' course."

There was silence for a time. Xavier swiveled his desk chair around, holding the prism up to the late-afternoon light, watching the rainbows dance on the walls. "Such a simple thing," he said finally. "A simple clear faceted crystal. Not much to look at initially…and then light shines through it, and it comes alive with a rainbow of colors." He turned his chair around, putting himself between the prism and the light. The rainbows disappeared. "But you take the light away, and it becomes a simple crystal again, a soulless shell."

Logan blinked. He couldn't understand the sudden shift in topic…but Chuck never said something like this without a reason. "Yeah," he finally ventured carefully.

Xavier looked down at the prism again. "Jubilee reminds me of this prism. What she's gone through over the years since she came with us…there have been times when I wondered if she would have been spared a great deal of heartache and anguish if we hadn't taken her in. The light of her soul shines through the prism of her body, and we see rainbows." He put the prism down carefully. "But since she came back from the Hulkster base, that light seemed to have dimmed. And then after we found her…crucified…" his voice trailed off, and he shook his head as if to clear the sight from his mind.

"The light dimmed even more. Now all I see is a crystal. Beautiful, possessing a depth and purity all its own; but bereft of the light that used to shine through it. This last incident, the one with Sabretooth…I replaced Ororo one night after you'd gone to sleep, and spoke to her when she woke briefly. I can't see the light inside her anymore, Logan. And that disturbs me deeply. She's so emotionally fragile right now, she could break under the slightest pressure."

Logan opened his mouth to say something, but Xavier held up a hand for silence. "Please, Logan, don't say anything. Jean was going to speak to Jubilee about it right before…before. And then she never got a chance to. If you think getting Jubilee out of the mansion for some quiet time away from any distractions, so you can find out what's bothering her, then by all means, do so."


	15. The Cabin

Chapter 15: The Cabin

Logan sighed gustily as he closed the kitchen door behind him and pulled his jacket off. He'd stayed out a lot later than he usually did, even for him.

He growled as he ran a hand through his hair. Jubilee had been studiously avoiding him since Hank had released her from the medlabs two weeks ago. She'd spent her time hanging around Bobby, Ororo, Warren, Paige, or whoever she could put between herself and him. The night before had been--or should have been--one of their movie nights. Instead, she'd volunteered to babysit Carter while Alex and Annie went out on a date, something Paige had volunteered to do so Jubilee could spend time with Logan. Jubilee had declined.

It would have hurt if he hadn't known the reason behind it. She was trying to avoid him, trying to avoid the conversation he'd been meaning to pursue with her since she had woken up with her concussion. She'd used Carter, Annie, and everybody else in the mansion as a buffer between them. A stark contrast from the way she'd spent the entire month or so before trying to get closer to him. And she'd jumped into a river after him…!

He climbed the stairs to his room as quietly as he could, avoiding all the creaky places out of habit. The mansion was quiet, and his senses, unused to the silence in a mansion usually humming with people, strained for some small sound.

He was walking past Jubilee's door when he heard it. A small, soft whimper, a sound of pain and anguish, so quiet that he would have missed it if he didn't have enhanced senses. He paused, irresolute. She didn't want to be around him; did he dare walk in on her and wake her from whatever dream was distressing her?

She cried out again; muffled, but it was a cry. He dropped his jacket on the floor and reached for her doorknob. The hell with whether it was right or not, she was his friend, and he'd be damned if he'd let her suffer alone.

Moonlight fell over her hunched form, huddled under the covers of her bed. Pillows were tossed helter-skelter all over the floor, the comforter was lying in a heap at the foot of her bed, and the sheets were tangled around her. Her fists were pressed against her lips, teeth cutting into the knuckles as she tried to stifle her cries. As he sat beside her, he felt the tension in her body, the cold sweat that filmed her bare arms and soaked the sheets, and the heat coming off her forehead and flushed face. "Jubes," he said gently, touching her shoulder lightly. "Jubes, wake up."

She tensed even more, her muscles knotting up, and shied from his touch. He shook his head, sighing, and took her shoulders firmly. "Jubilee, you're just havin' a bad dream. Wake up."

"NOO!!" She sat bolt upright in her bed, eyes still screwed tightly shut, and flung herself away from him, out of bed and toward the door. "No, leave me alone, don't touch me, please, don't hurt me, get away from me with those things, where is everybody! Wolvie, I need you, where are you…" She lurched toward the corner of the room closest to the door, eyes still tightly closed, hampered by the sheets still tangled around her legs. Unable to make headway with her legs trapped by the cloth, she fell onto her side on the floor, curling into a fetal position again and bursting into sobs.

Her cry had woken up those who slept nearest her room, and Logan looked up to see Paige, Rogue, and Remy standing in the doorway. A moment later, they were pushed aside, and he saw Emma striding into the room. She stood over Jubilee for a moment. "Jubilee, wake up," she said firmly.

Jubilee whimpered and curled up tighter, if that were possible.

Emma said, louder, "Wake up!"

Still no response. Emma reached out telepathically and physically, and said, "Jubilee, I said WAKE UP!" She shook Jubilee hard, ignoring Logan's black look.

The telepathic command, and the shake, startled Jubilee out of her dream, and she shot up off the floor, disoriented by the sudden awakening. She backpedaled furiously, until she collided with Logan's bulk, and clung to him for a moment, gasping as though she'd run a mile.

Emma sighed and snapped, "Logan, what are you doing in her room? It's not proper for a grown man to invade a young girl's room in the middle of the night. Go back to bed." She turned to Remy and the others, standing in the doorway. "Go back to bed, all of you. Come on, Jubilee, let's get you back into bed." She started to gather the scattered pillows from the floor and straighten the tangled bedsheets.

Jubilee didn't let go of Logan until Emma commanded her a second time, then she reluctantly let go of him, and he stood slowly. He wanted to stay; he wanted to be with her tonight, but Emma clearly had other ideas. "Out!" She snapped.

"Emma, please," Jubilee finally ventured timidly. "I don't mind. I'd like it if he stayed. Just this once."

Emma paused. "I told you 'no' last night, Jubilee. It's not right. You can't go creeping into his bed at night, and he can't come into yours. Jubilee, he's old enough to be your great grandfather! You'll get over the dreams eventually, like you did at the Academy before. Logan, go to bed." And Emma started to shoo him out of the room.

He refused to leave. "Whaddaya mean, ya told her las' night?"

Emma avoided meeting his eyes. "She's been trying to sneak out to your room the last week or so, since Hank let her out of the medlabs. She said she needed you to help her sleep. I told her she was being silly, and made her go back to her room."

Logan ground his teeth in anger. "Emma—"

"Hush." She gestured to the bed. Jubilee had dropped off to sleep. Logan twitched the comforter over her and brushed a stray lock of hair off Jubilee's forehead before leading Emma out of the sleeping girl's room.

"Emma, she an' I been friends fer longer'n any o' yer students have lived," he said, ignoring the way Emma flinched. Her attitude was hurting Jubilee; he didn't mind hurting her in return. "If she wants t'sleep in my room with me, I don't mind. An' yer not the one ta be tellin' her no. So get off her back about it, okay?"

"It's not proper—" Emma said stiffly, but Logan sniffed in disgust and pushed past her, heading for his own room after a slight pause to pick up his dropped jacket. He walked into his room and slammed the door behind him, not caring if anyone else woke, and reached under his bed for his bag. He'd been putting the little trip he'd planned off for a week now because Jubilee still looked tired and pale, but now he knew she was just suffering from lack of sleep. And that was something he could remedy with a trip upcountry.

He started to stuff clothes in his bag.

He watched Jubilee the next morning when she came down. She was walking even more slowly now, looking more tired than ever, and there were dark circles under her eyes. She was more subdued, and she avoided looking into his eyes as she picked at her breakfast. She didn't even object when Bobby ate the last of the Sugar Bombs—an action that would have provoked an explosion of temper at any other time. As soon as she finished, she headed upstairs to her room again.

He followed her upstairs after a brief word to Remy, and walked into her room just as she was curling back up in her bed to read. "Pack yer bags."

"Huh?" She frowned at him, her brow furrowed.

"Pack yer bag. Lightly. Warm stuff, but just essentials. We're blowin' this joint." He dragged her dusty little duffel bag out from under her bed and dropped it on her bed, vanishing out the door to get his own bag, already packed.

By the time he got back she was halfway packed. He noticed, with approval, that she didn't pack like some of the other women did, with lots of unnecessary toiletries. She tossed underclothing, socks, boots and one pair of sensible shoes in the bag, then a few pairs of jeans, t-shirts, and a spare jacket. A hairbrush, comb, hair elastics to tie back her hair, and finally her toothbrush and toothpaste, and then she shrugged her jacket on. By the time she looked up again, he noticed that she seemed a little more alert, a little more aware of what was going on around her.

He picked up her bag along with his and left the room, Jubilee trailing along behind him. She hadn't been outside in a while (he knew that because he'd been keeping rather obsessive track of where she had been the last week or so) and the breath of cool air she drew as they went out the kitchen door sounded like a prisoner taking his first free breath of air after getting out of prison. Her voice sounded a little happier as she asked him, "So where are we going?"

He slung both duffel bags into the back of Remy's truck and got into the front, reaching across to unlock the passenger side door. She climbed in and buckled her seatbelt, then asked again, "Where are we going?"

"My place up north. We need ta get away from the riffraff, just you an' me. Haven't done that in a while." He looked so annoyed as he said this that she was startled into a sudden laugh.

"You're right, we haven't." She was quiet as he started to back Remy's pickup out of the garage, then said, "Remy's gonna miss his truck."

"No he ain't. I arranged it with him."

"Really? How? He's usually paranoid about his truck!"

"Told him he could ride yer bike while we was gone. Ya know he likes yers better'n mine." Logan grinned wolfishly.

"Logan!! You didn't!" Jubilee exclaimed, aghast. "My bike! The last time he took your bike out he almost totaled it!"

"Exactly why I offered him yers." And then he had to concentrate very hard indeed on the road ahead as Jubilee reached across the seats and attacked him in mock fury. Finally he gave up, pulled over, and squirmed in his seat, laughing, as Jubilee attacked him, fingers probing along his ribs in all the places where she knew he was most ticklish. "All right! All right, I give up!" he grinned finally. He didn't particularly like being tickled…but it was a hell of a lot better than the extended sulk she'd been in for the last few weeks.

His little cabin still sat where he'd left it, a little more weathered maybe but still livable. All the things he'd left here, the blankets and things in locked wooden chests against the walls, were untouched by moths or spiders. A little musty-smelling maybe, but a good airing would clear all that out. He set Jubilee to hanging their bedding on the clothesline outside while he got everything inside ready. With all the chores that needed to be done to get the cabin livable for the few weeks Logan was planning to keep her here, she was too busy doing her share to slip back into her sulk, and when that was done, too tired to try and avoid him. There were only three rooms in the cabin; bedroom, kitchen, and 'living room'. He told her to sleep in the bedroom, which she headed for without a word of protest. He made himself comfortable on the couch with a beer from the store in town, not wanting to go to bed yet. He was expecting her to have bad dreams again; and this time, he would be there for her, and without anyone here for her to hide behind, she would have to talk to him.


	16. Rembrances

Chapter 16: Remembrance

As he expected, she had nightmares again.

He was up at the first small sound from the bedroom, and opened the door quietly. Moonlight from the bedroom's small window illuminated Jubilee's sleeping figure, and he saw the frown on her face in its light. He stood by the bed for a while, looking at the small face twisted in an expression of anguish and remembered pain, watched her writhe under the blankets. She pressed her knuckles to her mouth to stifle her cries, and he winced as he watched her teeth cut into her skin.

She moaned, twisting in the sheets, flinging both arms outward before returning them to her lower ribs, exactly where they would be if she were still wearing a straitjacket. "Let me go," she moaned, twisting in the sheets and winding them around her body further. "Please, Bastion, let me go! Stop it, I haven't done anything to you…please, I'm just a kid…" the hopeless pleading in her voice tore at Logan's heartstrings as he listened. "Daria, why is he doing this to me? Please, I have to get out of here…" She started to struggle…really struggle, but the sheet wound around her body was now constricting her movement, and she couldn't get her arms free.

She panicked, her eyes flying open wide. "Get off me…get it off me…let me go….please…"

Logan captured her twisting body in his arms as he fell onto the bed, trying to keep her from rolling off the bed on the other side and striking her head against the unyielding wooden wall of the cabin. She shrieked as a pillow flew up over her face, obscuring her vision of who was touching her, and her efforts increased.

Logan jabbed the pillow aside with his elbow and yanked at the sheet, popping a claw to shred the thin material in his haste to get it off Jubilee. As soon as her arms came free, she pushed tangled hair out of her eyes, took one look at him, standing beside the narrow bed with one claw extended, and rushed into his arms. He hastily retracted the claw and sat down on the bed with her in his arms, smoothing her hair and murmuring soothing noises in her ear as tears started to slip silently down her cheeks. He could feel the tension in her body drain out as he continued to hold her, until she was totally relaxed against him, and then he said, "Jubilee. Talk to me. Please, darlin'. Whatever it is in ya is eatin' ya up inside, an' I can't just sit by an' watch my Punkin die."

She was silent for moment…and then she began to talk.

She started with the moment of her capture back at the Academy—"You know what really hurts, Wolvie? I thought I was being rescued from the mayhem goin' on back there with Frosty…"—and on to her first awakening at the clinic. Waking to find herself stripped nude, covered with a paper drape that still left much of her skin exposed to the chilly air of the medical lab, and watching a man with a huge pair of buzzing shears doing a hack job on her hair, hair that she knew was going to take a long time to grow back. Her sense of helplessness, her fear, the pain as the dull shaver pulled unmercifully at the dark locks, and then the humiliating experience of being released, being handed a short garment, and told to dress—in front of the doctor who had checked her out—"processed," Jubilee told Logan bitterly—and the guards who stood against the wall, leering at her immature, fourteen year old body as she shivered her way into the short 'dress'.

She told him of having her hands encased in some kind of metal mittens, being led down a number of featureless hallways, to a shower, and shoved in to it after having the dress stripped from her. Then the shock of a lukewarm shower that warmed her up temporarily, then made her colder when the water was turned off; being forced to stand still by the simple expedient of having her mittened hands tied to the rail while they dried her off. They hadn't molested her then, but the experience had been humiliating enough. After they had dried her off they pulled the little dress over her head, and as they unshackled her hands to put the dress on her, she lashed out with feet and hands and caught them by surprise. She ran down the hallways, unsure of where she was going, knowing only that she had to escape. Then the brief fight, and she had hesitated…and then stopped and turned back to help the guard she had attacked, sure that she had killed him. Logan blew out a breath. Chiding her about it now was redundant…but leaving a fallen enemy behind you was a good thing, and not something to feel guilty about. So guilty, in fact, that she had missed her chance to escape to give the guard CPR! And she told of finally making it outside…and then passing out from the cold almost immediately.

And when she'd woken again, she was back in the medical lab, straitjacket firmly on her arms, preventing all movement…and the guards, angry that her attempted escape had earned them a dressing-down, administered a beating that left her so dazed she couldn't resist when they dragged her up on a table and strapped her down again. Then came the terrible process of fitting her with the mind-sifter, the bulky helmet that would probe her mind and drag images and memories out of her for Bastion's edification, and she described, in a halting voice, how the thin, needle-like probes had drilled deep into her skull, to bury themselves into her brain tissue. They yanked a pair of pants and shoes onto her body, still nude from the waist down, and threw her into a doorless, windowless cell.

Then the man whom she thought was rescuing her, Bastion, came to her for the first time and told her what he wanted from her; he wanted her to tell him everything she knew about the X-Men, particularly where they were. When she scoffed and told him she wouldn't tell him, he began to work on her mentally and emotionally, first with Scott's battered visor. That had triggered the memory of Illyana's death, a memory she had to try furiously to suppress as soon as she felt the vibrating of the needles in the sifter. But when he'd tried to bring her something to eat a long time later, she had refused to eat it, had kicked it back into his face despite her growing hunger and thirst. Logan whispered something about her having been brave, but it went unheard as Jubilee poured out the harsh, anguished memories that had plagued her since she'd escaped from the Hulkster base.

"Y'know, he almost broke me, that early," she said now, safe in the fortress of Logan's arms. "When he showed me an image of him, interrogating you, electrocuting you…I almost started crying in front of him. And then h made the image of you beg, and I realized it wasn't real, and I started laughing at him because he was so freaking desperate to get at whatever was in my head. And I yelled at him, attacked him the only way I could, by kicking at him. And something happened, I found out from Daria later that his proximity to the mindsifter picked up some of his own memories…and they weren't nice ones at all. He got mad, and he beat me."

Logan gritted his teeth and his hands faltered, but when she didn't say anything more, he got his temper under control and continued to stroke her hair and shoulders again. After a moment, she resumed.

"So he kept trying the mind sifter until it became apparent that I wouldn't cooperate, and he had the thing taken off my head. He still left the straightjacket on, though. And he sent his female assistant, Daria, in to bring me food and water. I was bruised from the sporadic beatings he'd give me when he got frustrated and not inclined to be patient, and I confronted her about her 'boss.' Something I said hit a nerve, and she left. I shouldn't have…but after she left, I ate. They didn't release my arms, so I had to eat with my face in the food, like a dog or something…" Her voice trailed off, and she had to take a few deep breaths before she went on. "She ate some, to make me think the food was safe…but it wasn't, there were drugs in the food, and I started hallucinating after that. They left me alone, though I think they were recording everything I said. I talked a lot while I was hallucinating, but apparently I didn't say what they wanted me to say.

"When I woke up from the drugs there was more food…so I drank the juice and refused to eat. Just kept ignoring the food they shoved in at me, and finally Daria came in after a week to try and make me eat. I had managed to get my arms free, I just didn't want anyone to know, and I was waiting for a chance to try and escape again. When she came in, I attacked her…and she turned out to be a mutant, of sorts. I still don't know what it was she attacked me with, but I talked her though it and helped her get herself back under control. And she realized that what was happening wasn't right, wasn't fair; that Bastion wasn't against _all_ of mutant kind if he could torture me and be nice to her."

Logan smiled to himself, a little sadly. That was one of the things he loved about Jubilee. Even in the extremity of her own distress, she'd always think of the other person first. The guard she'd resuscitated, this girl Daria…Jubilee had a heart of gold and a forgiving temper to match. Even with all she'd gone through. He focused on her next words.

"After that I think Bastion realized I'd gotten to her. She didn't come anymore. He had guards come in periodically, hold me down, and force-feed me. They'd stuff my mouth full and punch me in the stomach until I had to swallow or choke, or they'd hold my nose until I had to breathe. And seeing as how the drugs and the mind-sifter hadn't done a whole lot of good, he ordered the guards to do whatever they wanted to do, to make me talk. They…" Jubilee took a shuddering breath. "They hurt me. They beat me, they…they molested…me, and hurt me and did all kinds of things to me. There were times when I just wanted to die. I didn't know how much time had passed; it was constantly dark, and I was never allowed out. Except when they dragged me off to their medical labs. They'd strip me and strap me down, and do all kinds of things…They'd inject me with drugs to force me to hallucinate, or give me these horribly painful medical 'checkups' that left me bleeding and screaming in agony for days. Logan…I wanted to die. Every time they put me back in my cell, I wanted to die. I stopped eating, stopped drinking, went into a kind of catatonic state whenever they weren't…playing…with me." Tears filled her eyes. "I cursed you guys. You hadn't come to rescue me, like you all had before; I didn't know what was going on, I hadn't heard from you…I wished for you desperately, Wolvie, and you never came." There was no accusation in her voice, no rancor. Just sadness.

"I didn't know until afterward that you all had problems of your own. And so did Frosty, although she and Sean really ought to have known I was missing when everybody else came back and I didn't." There _was_ accusation in her voice now. "And then one day Bastion pulled me out and showed me what was going on outside the base, and there was Scott, and Sam and 'Ro and Jean, and…and you…" Jubilee looked up at him now, her eyes full of remembered horror. "I saw you, and you were so badly beat up…I tried to resist thinking it was really you, at first, and then I saw the way you were hanging onto Jean…"

Tears spilled down her cheeks. "I knew it was for real. And then you guys escaped and got loose, and he sent the guards after you while he started closing the doors…I couldn't let him put you through what I had gone though. I flung myself at the button that opened the doors, hitting them with a protruding knob on the mind-sifter he'd put back on my head. The doors opened and you guys got out. Bastion was furious. He beat me, hard, so hard I could barely stand after he was done…but you were free, and I knew you'd escape. I was torn. I wanted you guys to come rescue me…but I also wanted you to keep going, to get away from him and never come back."

She took a deep breath. "He had the mind-sifter taken off…and then he let the guards beat me before they dropped me back in my cell. Soon after they'd gone, Daria came in. She knew, now that his plans had been foiled, he'd run out of patience with me and would really start to hurt me, as if he hadn't done enough already. And she had enough. She helped me escape. When it was evident that we were being pursued, she dropped me off at the bottom of a dry gorge and flew away, leading the Sentinels away from me. Then she…" Tears filled Jubilee's eyes. "She flew right into the side of a sandstone wall. Killed herself. The Sentinels didn't get a chance to ask her where she'd dropped me off." She looked up at Logan. "And I never got a chance to say thank you." She sniffed.

"I ran. I didn't care what direction I was running, I just ran. For a long time. And then a Sentinel found me, caught me after I tripped on a stupid prairie dog hole, and when I turned around to fight with him, determined to take him with me if he was going to kill me, there you were. I was never so happy to see anyone else in my life." She looked at him meditatively. "When you hugged me that first time, I realized something. See, Bastion had been asking me where my home was…and the minute you hugged me, I knew that home wasn't the mansion, it was wherever _you_ were."

Logan pulled her in a crushing hug. And now she let go, with a storm of pent-up tears, held back for too long, tears of grief and pain and loss and a number of other emotions she'd never given vent to. Logan held her, hushed her, soothed her, and finally lay down on the bed beside her and let her cry herself to sleep beside him. Finally, exhausted himself, he slept too.


	17. Morning

Chapter 17: Morning

Logan woke first the next morning, to bright sun streaming in the window. He started to move, groggily, then felt a weight on his arm and realized Jubilee was still sleeping on top of him. Careful not to disturb her (she looked too peaceful) and eased himself carefully out of bed.

He set the coffeemaker to brew a pot of strong black coffee, figuring that Jubilee would probably want some when she woke up, and poured himself a cup when it was ready. As he sipped it, he thought over what Jubilee had told him the night before.

It was terrible. Sick. Obscene. Bastion had called mutants, especially the X-Men, monsters. What should he call himself, then, who could torture an innocent child? Jubilee hadn't done anything wrong, just happened to be born with an extra gene that made her able to release little colored sparkles. She wasn't a monster, she wasn't bent on controlling the world. She was having trouble just controlling her own powers!

He ground his teeth. There were a few of their enemies he wouldn't have minded seeing back there in the facility. Creed. Magneto. Others, countless others the X-Men had faced and defeated over the years. Not Jubilee. Not his happy, enthusiastic, perky little Jubilee. She hadn't deserved what happened to her. The world could be so unfair sometimes.

And the guards. Was he the only one who found the thought of touching a child sickening? What was wrong with them? How could they force a clearly unwilling, immature, young girl to do…they were grown men, she was a child, small for her age, and the pain…Logan clenched his fists, and his claws popped out. With difficulty, he forced himself to relax, and they slid back in. He put his coffee down, reached backward, and absently rubbed his shoulder. His muscles were stiff from lying on a bed too narrow for two people. He really should think about replacing the mattress with a bigger one.

Gentle hands pushed his hand aside, replacing them with a pair of soft-skinned, smaller set. "No, don't push me away, Wolvie. My massage teacher said you can't reach the shoulder muscles with your own hands, you really need to have another person work on those muscles for you. So put your hand down and stop dithering and let me work." There was a mix of irritation and tenderness in the voice that sounded more like his Jubilee than it had since her run-in with the tree and Creed. Logan dropped his hands into his lap, leaned forward and rested his forehead on the tabletop, and felt Jubilee's hands go to work on his back and shoulder muscles. Damn, that felt good.

"And there's no Emma here to walk in and interrupt us, so I can do a proper job on those muscles. Wow. You're really tight here, Wolvie." She worked busily for a while, working the kinks out until his back muscles lay smooth and flat against his bones, then she patted his back, leaned forward and wrapped his arms around his neck, and kissed his shoulder. He reached up, touching the hands that were draped over his shoulders, and said, "Did ya have a good sleep?"

She nodded against the back of his head. "Haven't slept that soundly in a while."

"Did I wake you up?"

There was a slight hesitation, and then Jubilee nodded again. "I heard your claws pop. I thought someone might be trying to get us up here."

Logan grinned. "They ain't getting' ta ya, darlin'. They're gonna haveta go through me ta get ta ya."

Jubilee got up and crossed to the coffee maker, pouring herself a cup, then looked around for cream and sugar. Finding none, she looked inquiringly at Logan and arched her eyebrows.

He shrugged, cursing himself for the oversight. "Sorry, Jubilee," he said. "I don't usually put anythin' in my coffee…an' yer the first person I brung up here."

She grinned, and her eyes sparkled. "Really? You've never brought anybody else up here? Wow. Cool." She crossed the room holding her coffee cup, and he was suddenly aware that she was wearing only an oversized t-shirt and socks, and little else. He tried not to notice the way her breasts poked out against the front of the shirt, or the peek of her underclothing under the shirt, but it was _very_ hard not to notice when she sat down in the only other chair in the cabin, sat back, and crossed her legs, and he saw… "Jubes," he said, averting his eyes and trying not to look like he was looking, "Do you think you could maybe go an' put some pants on or something?"

"So you have eyes after all," she teased gently, and Logan flushed when he realized she was doing it deliberately. She giggled at his blush, which just made his blush deepen. "I was wondering when you'd notice."

Logan put his coffee down and crossed his arms. "Jubes, if this is yer way of inviting me ta sleep with ya…or askin' me if we're 'goin' out…then no. I can't, Jubes, especially not after what ya told me last night."

Hurt filled her eyes, and she stared into her coffee cup. "Why do you think I didn't tell you…or anyone else…before?" she asked, her voice shaking. "I didn't want anybody to look at me like I was…dirty, somehow. Tainted. I didn't even tell Hank, although I think he guessed."

"Jubes. I don't think you're dirty. What happened…it wasn't your fault. It's just…you had all those men force you into being…physical…with them, and I don't want to be the next one to violate you like that."

"You wouldn't be, Logan. You wouldn't be…forcing me. If I say it's okay, it's okay, right?" She looked at him anxiously.

Logan hesitated. "It would…but I really don't see ya that way, Jubilee. I don't see ya as a little sex kitten," she gave a little watery smile at that, "I see ya as my partner, my pal, my sidekick. Besides, ya wouldn't want an ol' man like me. Look at all them boys at college ya dated, an' gone ta parties with," and he made an unmistakable hand gesture.

"No." Jubilee said in a small voice.

He stared. "No?"

She shook her head. "No. I tried. There was this boy I liked, and we went on a few dates. And I brought him back to the dorm room, and we…tried…and I couldn't. As soon as he got close, I…I just couldn't. I kept seeing the guards, and I couldn't." She looked down, all trace of her playfulness gone. "Logan, it wasn't just force. The other things they did to me got so bad that…well, after the first time with the guards…I found it was bearable. It was better than some of the other things they wanted to do. I let them, so they wouldn't do…the other things."

Logan flinched at that revelation. "Jubilee…no matter what, it was still force. Ya hadda do that, in order ta survive. It still didn't make it right. You were a kid, they were grown men. They had no right ta touch ya, even if ya did tell 'em they could. It was still wrong."

Jubilee's shoulders started to shake with silent, tearless sobs. "I…tried so hard…to do what they wanted…so they wouldn't hurt me even worse. I tried to tell myself that I was doing it because I had to survive. I tried to ignore them…they told me I wanted it because I let them do…what they did. And I think after a while I started to believe them…"

Logan got up out of his chair, going to crouch down in front of Jubilee, huddled in a small, miserable lump in her chair. "Listen ta me, Jubes." He captured her chin in his hands, tilting her face up to meet his, and saw the misery, the pain, the anguish in them. "It wasn't yer fault. None o' it was. Regardless o' what ya told 'em, they still shouldn't'a touched ya. They were grown men, they shoulda known." Tears filled Jubilee's eyes, and she laid her head on Logan's shoulder and cried. He held her for a long time, his own heart crying in anguish for her pain, until she finally ran out of tears, picked up her now-cold coffee, and drained the cup.

"I decided that what they did ruined me, that I'd never be able to sleep with a guy without having flashbacks to Bastion and his guards. And the boy I liked…he went around telling everyone that I was frigid, and I liked girls…I was so embarrassed and humiliated. The rumors died down, but I never got close to another classmate." She took a deep breath. "I found a book in the library about dealing with the aftermath of traumatic events like my…experience…with the guards…and the book said that it's different with someone I really cared about, someone I loved. That if I found someone I really cared about, he'd be patient and gentle and I'd be able to enjoy it."

Logan's heart skipped a beat. With all the things Jubilee had been through, the fear she had of physical intimacy, and she was asking him to be her 'first'… "Oh, Jubilee," he said quietly. "I would if I could…but I can't. I just…don't see ya that way. But I'll be your friend. And if anybody ever dare s touch ya again, I'll rip their hands off!" His vehement declaration brought a smile to her face, finally, and he stood, kissing the top of her head. "So with all that out of the way, how's breakfast sound?"

"Lovely. I'll make toast."

Logan pinned her with a glare. "Don't even think about getting up out of that chair," he said in mock ferocity. "I see how your toast comes out. You can butter it, but you're not making it!"

Jubilee crossed her arms and pouted. "No fair. That was ages ago. I've gotten better at cooking since then. And how about how your eggs come out? The last time you went camping your skillet came back with all those burned eggs in it." They glared at each other for a moment, then simultaneously broke into smiles. 'Okay," Jubilee said at last. 'You win. But hey, you were up all night listening to me run my mouth—"

"Ya weren't runnin' yer mouth," Logan interjected quickly.

"—so in return for listening to my whining, how about we go into that town we passed on the way here and get a breakfast somebody else made? My treat."

Logan was just glad to see her smiling. 'Okay. And while we're there, I got another errand to run you can help me with."

"What?" she asked, cocking a brow at him quizzically as he headed for the bedroom for his shirt.

"The bed ain't big enough for the two of us. Wanna get another one."

Jubilee giggled as he came out dressed and held the door open for her. "Thanks." She closed the door and started dressing, and as she did, she called, "Hey, Wolvie?" through the door.

"Yeah?" he said back, emptying and cleaning the coffeepot and used cups.

"You know even if we don't do anything, they're still going to wonder back at the mansion what we're doing here. I'm sure Remy probably told everyone where we were going by now."

"Yeah, but if any rumors start, Chuck'll squash them."

Her head popped out around the bedroom door. "Charles knows where we are?"

"Not exactly. But after ya woke up I asked him if he thought it was a good Idea fer you an' me ta take a little vacation, an' he said it was okay."

"Oh." Her head disappeared back in, then popped back out a minute later as she thought of something else. "Emma won't take Charles's word for it. She's going to suspect the worst. Remember how she was jumping to conclusions after we came back from the motel?"

'Let her." Logan's tone spoke clearly of his distaste for the former White Queen of the Hellfire Club. "She can jump ta all the conclusions she wants ta. We ain't done anything wrong, Chuck okay'ed our trip, and I don't give a flamin' rat's ass what she thinks." He put his hands on his hips. "Now are ya just gonna hang yer head outside my bedroom door or are we actually gonna get some breakfast sometime today?"

Jubilee burst into laughter, and her head disappeared back into the room again. Moments later she came out dressed in hip-hugging black jeans, sensible hiking boots, and a red plaid flannel shirt like Logan's. She grinned at his raised eyebrow, and said, "I found out from years of wearing yours that they were really very comfortable." She was twisting her long hair into a braid at the nape of her neck as she grabbed her wallet and shoved it in her back pocket, and tucked her checkbook in her jacket pocket. "Let's go," she said.


	18. Logan And Jubilee

Chapter 18: Logan and Jubilee

The furniture store was cool after the heat outside (the morning started cool, but turned out hot when they left the fast-food restaurant after breakfast) and Logan looked around. There was only one salesperson there, and she was waiting on a young couple with two small children when they entered, so Jubilee wandered off to look around at the beds. Logan caught himself staring at the couple; the man had an arm around the woman's waist as they watched their children, adorable little toddlers, roll around on one of the beds while the salesperson explained something about 'visco-elastic memory cells' in the mattress stuffing. The couple walked across the store to another bed which had caught the woman's eye, and Logan realized, with a shock, that the woman was considerably younger than the man. She looked barely the legal age to be married, and the man…well, the man walked with a slight limp and had a shock of dark-brown hair, and when he turned around Logan saw the man's hair was heavily silvered at the temples. However, for all the age difference, they were clearly in love, and their fingers twined with each other as they held hands and discussed the price of the bed they were looking at. He looked down at his own hand, remembering the time he'd watched Blink and Sabretooth holding hands. He remembered wondering if he and Jubilee had ever held hands like that.

Holding hands. It seemed like such a simple thing, but really, how often did two people hold hands? Life tended to be too busy, too frenetic, for that kind of leisurely activity. And as much as he and Jubes had been together, he couldn't remember having held her hand once. Maybe a couple of times when they had been escaping some sort of danger and fleeing, but never in a simple, non-emergency way.

She was standing beside a mattress, reading the information plaque propped at the end of a mattress, when he came up. "What do you think?" she asked him, never looking up. "This comes in extra-firm, so I figure this will be good for you."

"Yeah, but ya like them soft things," Logan drawled, touching the surface of the mattress. Yep. Extra firm. Just like he liked them. Funny that Jubilee would remember, after all these years. However… "The bed ain't fer me, Jubes, it's fer you."

She frowned up at him. "For me?"

"Yeah." Logan had done some thinking before he'd fallen back asleep the night before, and had decided something. "Yer the first person 'sides me who's been up at the cabin, but I figure out of all of us, you an' me got more need of a quiet li'l retreat than anybody else. So the cabin's goin' ta be yers, too, once ya sign the deed. An' if it's gonna be yers yer gonna need somewhere comfortable ta sleep. I'm puttin' the second bed across the room from mine 'til I can build an addition, but it's still gonna be yer bed. So pick out somethin'_ you_ like."

"Really?" Jubilee's eyes opened wide. "Really? My own, my very own?" She swallowed hard.

He grinned, touched and saddened by her reaction. Jubilee was an orphan, shuttled from foster home to foster home by a system that didn't really care about her, until she'd finally had enough of it all and became a street kid. Foster homes were foster homes, and she'd never had anything of her own then. And street kids didn't have anything of their own either. Maybe the clothes on their backs, but usually those were stolen, and that was it. And then the X-Men had picked her up, taken her under their wings, so to speak, but the room designated as 'hers' wasn't really hers. When she left for the Massachusetts academy, the room was left behind. Sure, nothing had been touched, but a couple of times she'd come home unexpectedly during the holidays, and her room had been used by the visitors (other members from other teams) that occasionally visited the mansion. So 'Jubilee's room' hadn't really been _her_ room there, either. Now he was going to build her an addition onto his cabin, and put her name on it, and even though it was his, it would be hers too. Finally something of her own.

She reached out to hug him, grabbing him tightly around the middle, and whispered, 'Thank you, Wolvie." She hugged him until he was firmly convinced that if he didn't have adamantium on his bones, they would have broken.

He found he didn't mind that a bit.

"Well, you could sort of see that the mattress store wasn't big enough to carry the stuff they had in stock ready to transport," Jubilee said later, her feet propped on the dash and her bare hand hanging out the window. "And I'm not really keen on sleeping on a bed other people put their dirty shoes up on, and other people's kids drooled all over. Yuck."

Logan rolled his eyes. "Still woulda liked ta have ya in a decent bed o' yer own tonight," he growled, slowing down to take a turn carefully. The lumber in the back of the pickup would fall out if he wasn't careful. "I ain't exactly lookin' forward ta spendin' another night on the couch."

"Oh, you only spent half a night on the couch," Jubilee said, aiming a swat at his arm. "The rest of the night you spent with me…listening to me shoot my mouth off." She went suddenly quiet, picking at her fingernails as Logan came to a red light.

"Jubilee." Logan turned to her, capturing her eyes with his own. "Ya weren't 'shootin' yer mouth' off. You were gettin' some stuff off yer shoulders ya been carryin' around fer too damn long. Ya needed ta put it down. I didn't mind, Jubes, it was the reason why I brought ya up here. D'ya understand?"

She gave him a watery smile…just as the car behind him beeped a horn irritatingly. The light had turned green, and Logan hadn't noticed. "Yeah, yeah, keep yer pants on," he growled, easing down on the gas pedal and getting the pickup moving. "Jubes, I care 'bout you. I love you. I couldn't stand seein' how bad ya was feelin', couldn't stand hearin' ya cry every night from nightmares. An' with Frosty an' One Eye back there keepin' ya from comin' ta me when ya needed a friend, it didn't look like you was goin' ta be gettin' a good night's sleep anytime soon."

Jubilee sighed. "Do you know what Frosty said? She said I was old enough to handle my own problems without bothering anybody else with them. She told me under no circumstances was I to go crawling into your bed using my nightmares as an excuse to seduce you. I got so mad at her."

Logan gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. "When we get back she an' I gonna have a little talk," he growled. "Just cause she attached herself ta Cyke don't mean she's taken Jean's place."

Jubilee was silent for a moment. Then… "I miss Jean," she said wistfully.

Logan felt his heart contract with an old pain he'd never acknowledged. "Yeah," he said. "I do too."

"Still have a crush on her?"

"Yeah," he said sadly. "Even when she married Scott, I still kinda had a thing for her. I guess it was obvious, huh?" he said, thinking about the Zippo in his pocket. He saw Jubilee's eyes flick to the pocket he kept the lighter in, and then she smiled.

"Yeah, it was kinda obvious." Jubilee suddenly looked up, into the rear-view mirror. "That jackass better get off our tail," she muttered.

Logan took a glance back. Sure enough, there was a car behind the, almost kissing the ends of the lumber Logan had bought to start putting the addition on the cabin. "Gumbo's gonna have a fit if I get the pickup in an accident," he muttered.

Jubilee took her feet off the dash and sat back in her seat, looking out the mirror on her side to see what the car tailgating them was doing. Casually, she let her arm slip out the window, hanging down, and released a small blue spark. "He'll be off our tail right about…" she pretended to check her watch, "…now."

Behind them, the car suddenly slammed on the brakes. There was nobody behind them, which was fortunate, and as Logan continued on, the tailgater was dropping off behind them gradually. "What'd you do?" he asked Jubilee, sitting in the passenger seat and looking smug.

"Dropped a paff in the road," she said. At Logan's alarmed expression, she said, "Oh, don't worry, just a small one. It popped right under his front fender. Won't damage his car or the road, but he's gonna spend some time wondering what that funny 'pop' noise was."

Logan stared at her. "Yer gettin' good," he said finally. It was the only thing he could think of to say.

Jubilee's grin got even wider. "I am, aren't I?" she said cheerfully. "Hank's impressed that I have that much control over them. And Charles is ecstatic that I've got them, and my temper, under control, since he doesn't have to call the repairmen out all the time anymore."

They pulled up in front of the cabin, and Jubilee got out. "Damn, it got hot," she said. 'It was all nice and cool this morning, and now it's all hot."

Logan grunted. "Oh well. C'mon, I wanna get at least the framework for the walls up before sunset. Grab my toolbox from the closet in the bedroom, will ya?" She vanished inside as Logan started hauling the lumber from the back of the truck and piling it behind the cabin.

They took turns holding the boards and nailing until, by the time they were ready to quit late that afternoon, the framework for Jubilee's new room was up and attached to the side of the cabin. Logan had chosen to use the existing back door to the cabin as Jubilee's room door, building three walls and leaving the side of the cabin as the fourth wall.

Jubilee stood back and looked at it. Logan said quickly, "It ain't the fanciest, Jubes, it ain't like Chuck's mansion, but it's small, and cozy, and quiet."

She turned to him, her eyes shining with tears, and said softly, "It's more than I ever had before. It's home, Logan. Finally a place to call my own. A place no one will ever take from me, of make me move away from, again. I love it. It might be small, but it's a paradise."

Logan swallowed the lump in his throat. "A paradise, eh?" he said, reaching out and scooping her up unexpectedly. "If ya were cleaner, it might be." He tossed her over his shoulder in a fireman's hoist, and headed for the small lake. It was more of a pond, really, but it was deep enough for a swim, and it was cold. He pitched Jubilee into it headfirst, and she screamed with laughter as she hit the water and went under.

When she didn't resurface right away, he waded out into the water a short distance. "Jubes?"

He felt a swirl under the water, and suddenly a concussive blast knocked his feet out from under him and he fell over. He disappeared with a yell of startlement below the surface, and found her floating underwater, holding her breath, with a wreath of colored sparkles in her hands, ready to be released. When she saw him, she grinned, dissipated the paffs, and surfaced at the same time he did.

"Like that?" She pushed long, wet, dark strands from her eyes and grinned as she sat down on the sandy bottom beside him. "I found out I could do that when I pulled you out of the rapids. Creed grabbed me and tried to get me to let go of you. I couldn't let him drag me away, so I just reached around and paffed him." She grinned. "That was when I found out my paffs work underwater. Maybe not the same way they do in air, but the force of the displaced water carries a bit more kick down there than it does up here." She demonstrated, shooting a small stream of sparks from her hands underwater. A short distance in front of him, a fountain of water suddenly sprayed up from the surface of the lake, accompanied by two small minnows who'd probably just been scared out of several weeks of life.

"Yer gettin' good," Logan said after a moment, as the water pattered back into the lake with a sound like soft rain. "Didn't know ya could do that. No, don't do it again," he said, catching hold of her arm. "You'll scare the fish away. An' there's a couple of 'em out there with our names on 'em, waitin' to be caught fer dinner..." He hauled himself, dripping, out of the lake and stepped into the cabin. Shutting the door carefully behind him, he shucked his wet clothes off in front of the door and padded naked into the bedroom. He went to rummage in the dresser for a spare pair of shorts and shirt, then ducked back into the closet and came back out with a fishing pole and tackle box.

Jubilee was still sitting there in wet clothes, though she had deigned to get out of the water and was now sitting on the grassy bank. Logan put the box down and opened it, quickly choosing a hook, then stabbed his claws into the dirt and tore up a big chunk of soil. This close to the lake's verge, the ground was moist, and as he expected, a worm wriggled out of the soil and fell to the grassy ground. He shook the earth off his claws, reached for the worm (disregarding Jubilee's 'Ewww, gross' ) and baited his hook. Wading out into the lake a few steps, he cast.

The fish were biting, and within an hour he had four or five good-sized fish on his string. He carried his last catch, a nice eight-inch spot, back to the bank and tossed the still-flopping fish next to Jubilee, who eyed it as if it would jump up and bite her. "I caught it, now ya gotta clean it and cook it."

Jubilee started at the fish with wide eyes, then looked up at him. "Soap works on fish scales?"

He started to choke with laughter. He sat down on the bank and howled with laughter as she looked at him with annoyance, and only when it became clear that she really had no idea how to clean a fish did he reluctantly choke back his laughter and reach for the cleaning knife in his toolbox. He gave her the knife and one of the smaller fish, then used his claws to clean one as he showed her how to scrape the scales from the fish, gut it and clean out its insides, tossing them back into the water for other fish to eat, and then remove the head and tail. In the time it took him to do three, she managed one. He finally took pity on her ineptitude and took the fish from her, cleaning it the rest of the way.

"We didn't have fish like this in LA," Jubilee said plaintively, sucking on her thumb, which she'd cut with the cleaning knife. "Fish in LA come already cleaned and cooked and ready to eat."

Logan laughed again as he collected twigs and kindling and had her start a fire. "Jubes, if ya wanna live up here, yer gonna have ta learn how ta rough it," he said as he pushed a couple of rocks into the fire. When they were hot, he raked them back out with a stick, placed them flat side up, and put the fish on the rocks to cook.

Jubilee raised her eyebrow dubiously, but her skeptical expression softened after she took her first bite. Logan ate slowly, savoring the taste of fresh fish. He'd get some every now and then from the seafood place in the Village and cook it when his turn for dinner prep came around at the mansion, but they never tasted as good as they did out here.

He and Jubilee sat for a long time beside the fire, his back to a tree, she lying flat on her back on the grass beside him. She talked about the astronomy class she'd taken back in college, and they sat for a while, she pointing out constellations and telling him what they were. "That's Orion, there," she told him. "See that bright one there? And the three diagonal ones?"

Logan shrugged. Stars were a way for him to get where he was going in the dark without having to check a compass. "Looks kinda like a lopsided house ta me," he said. "But if ya say it's a hunter, I guess it's a hunter." He squinted. "I still don't see it."

After a time, she ran out of things to say, and for a long time they sat in companionable silence, listening to crickets and nightbirds as the moon rose over the lake. When Logan looked down next, he found she'd fallen asleep there on the ground, her head pillowed on his lap. He woke her gently, and helped her into the cabin, where she fell into his bed. He got her sneakers and socks off and pushed her feet under the blanket, tucking the ends under her chin, and left her sleeping peacefully.


	19. The Church Of Humanity

Chapter 19: The Church Of Humanity

He woke first the next morning, muscles aching from sleeping on a none-too-comfortable couch. A quick glance into the bedroom showed she was still sleeping, soundly, with a small smile on her face. He brewed a pot of coffee and sipped one cup slowly as he thought about something that had caught his attention the day before.

She was twenty-three. How was it possible that she was still discovering things she could do with her power, things she didn't even know she could do before? He'd noticed her control was a bit better; the way she had paffed the biker holding him back there on the road before she'd almost been hit by the car. And now that he thought about it, there were little things…mostly her inability to keep Sabretooth from hurting her during their fight before he'd gotten there. He could think of any number of ways Jubilee could have done Creed in before he came…or at least kept him off her. That fight had been too fast, and she'd paid too high a price for it, in her concussion, and the gashes on her scalp.

With a growl he rose from the chair and stomped outside. The only thing he could think of was that, while she'd been going to the Massachusetts Academy, she hadn't learned much. Oh, plenty of book learning, but her time there hadn't adequately prepared her to do battle as a full-fledged member of the team. "What the flamin' hell did they do over there all the time?" He slammed his fist into the trunk of a nearby tree, angry at the ineptitude of the White Queen. When he pulled his hand away, he realized he'd left marks in the trunk.

He blew out a long, calming breath. Getting angry wasn't going to help anything. Planting his feet apart, he stretched his body out in the long, smooth, flowing gestures of the familiar Japanese _kata_. Concentrating on stretching and relaxing those muscles, he allowed the peace and quiet and familiar movement calm his mind.

The wind shifted, and brought to him a familiar scent. He turned fluidly to face the girl who was standing behind him, half-hidden in the treeline, and said cheerfully. "Come on out, Jubes."

She came out. "Were you watching me?" he asked, pausing in his exercises.

She nodded. "I always like watching you when you're doing _kata_," she said, smiling a little. "It's so beautiful, so graceful. I wish I could move like that."

Logan swallowed as the answer to his dilemma popped into his head. He'd have to correct Emma's oversight by training her himself. It wouldn't be a hardship, it would give him an excuse to spend time with her, and most importantly he would be able to teach her how to take care of herself in a battle. If she insisted on hanging around him, getting into the kind of trouble he did, then she might as well learn to fight like he did, too. It would give her an edge; no one would expect this tiny little Chinese girl to give them a real fight.

"Come on over here," he said, moving back as she came to stand on the patch of grass he'd recently occupied. "Now spread your legs a little. No, wider." Good thing she was about the same height as he was; the imprints of his feet in the dew-damp grass gave her an idea how far apart he meant, and the distance was one that was compatible with her frame. "Now, arms out, like this." He demonstrated a few moves, slowly, watching as she tried to duplicate it. She tried it the first time, tentatively, cautiously, then a little faster and more confidently the second time around.

He terminated the session when they were both fully stretched out and she was a little breathless, and he followed her back up to the cabin where she started fixing breakfast. "Hey, Jubes," he said, watching her crack eggs and fry them up in a battered old skillet.

"Yeah?" she answered, cutting up pepper jack cheese and tossing the cubes into the skillet for an egg and cheese omelette.

"Somethin's been botherin' me since yesterday," he said. "When ya said you'd never tried paffin' underwater before. Jubes, by now you ought ta know exactly what ya can or can't do, ya ought ta know yer limits. How come ya don't?"

Jubilee didn't answer until she'd dumped the mess of eggs onto a plate and dropped another pat of butter in the skillet for her own share. Then she brought the plate over and set it in front of him. "I don't know, I guess…I never really explored what I could or couldn't do before," she said, sounding slightly embarrassed.

"But that was what ya went ta the Massachusetts Academy for," Logan protested, stabbing t the eggs with a fork. "So ya could find out what ya could do with yer powers, what ya couldn't do, an' train ya fer the responsibility o' bein' a full-fledged team member."

Jubilee again avoided saying anything for a long time, though Logan got the distinct impression she was trying to figure out what to say rather than concentrating on not burning her breakfast. Finally, though, she sighed and sat down with her own plate and a fork. "Not to get Frosty in trouble or anything," she said musingly, "But we really did a lot more book learning than anything else. I mean, we had the biosphere to 'fool around in', as Sean called it once, but a lot of the things I learned in theory, on paper, never really got practiced in the biosphere. Emma was always saying, 'don't do that', or 'don't do this'. It annoyed me. I don't like her, Logan, I never have. And between all the crap that happened there, and the stuff that happened while I was gone, there wasn't really a lot of opportunities to practice." She saw his expression. "Well, Emma was always getting called away on her business, and Sean really kind of took a backseat and let her do what she wanted. And they didn't want us to try practicing stuff on our own, because if we did we might get hurt and she didn't want that." She hunched her shoulders in an unconsciously apologetic gesture.

Logan stared into his eggs. When they got back, he wanted to have a long, private talk with a certain former headmistress…It wasn't till Jubilee made a little sound of disappointment and he looked up that he realized he'd been growling. "Ya shoulda been learnin'," he growled angrily. "Not gettin' kidnapped and imprisoned and tortured…ya shoulda known how ta handle yerself when Creed jumped ya, ya wouldn't'a gotten a concussion an' all them scars on the back o' yer head like ya did…"

Jubilee shrank into herself, seeming suddenly younger than she really was. "I'm sorry, Logan," she whispered miserably. "I'm sorry." Then she got up out of the chair, running out the door.

"Aw, hell," Logan said angrily to himself as he smelled, faintly, her salty tears. "Ya gone an' made the girl cry, dumbass." He got up and followed her outside.

She was sitting against the tree they'd eaten dinner under the night before, her shoulders shaking silently. At his approach, she turned and tried not to look like she was crying. He sighed heavily, sat down behind her, wrapped his arms around her shoulders, and rocked her gently until she stopped shaking. "I ain't angry with ya, darlin'," he said. "It's just…well, ya never really learned how ta use what ya got. If you'd been better trained, better taught, Bastion might not have caught ya off guard. He'd never have had a chance ta hurt ya."

Jubilee wiped her face. "In retrospect, Wolvie, I don't think anything would have really made a difference then. There was so much crazy stuff going on…and I was only fourteen, Logan. I hadn't even reached my full growth yet." She sniffed. "It would, however, have made a difference when Ange and I got captured by the Church of Humanity. Logan…they tortured us. When we woke up in their basement they were waiting for us. I tried to paff them…Ange tried to use his skin…but I was too damn scared out of my mind at finding myself captured again in a small dark room with people…men…standing over me…I couldn't get any kind of defense together. They dropped a heavy crossbeam of wood on the floor and held me down as they nailed my wrists to the wood. I screamed…oh, God, Logan…"

Her breath caught in a sob. "It hurt…the iron just smashed through the bones in my wrist, and I couldn't do anything after that but scream. It hurt…so much…I couldn't fight after that. They left me lying there for a long time, and then they dragged me out in front of a whole church full of people. There were wooden supports there, little v's with notches at their tops, and they hauled the edges of the beam I was nailed to up on top of those supports until my feet just barely touched the ground. And then they tortured me. You know that energy whip Senyaka had? They used something like that, except it barely left a mark. It was electrified, somehow, and every time it landed on my skin I screamed. It only left light marks on my skin, but it hurt like hell. And all the time, there was that leader, saying it was what God wanted, that our kind were tainted by the devil and we had to be purged of the devil's taint. I'd pass out, and they would take me down…and then they'd do it all over again when I woke up. They gave me just enough water and food to keep me alive for their next little demonstration."

Logan closed his eyes. He could still remember his own crucifixion by the Reavers. He'd been a full-grown man then; how much worse could it have been, then, for a seventeen-year-old girl? And he hadn't been on it for long; he'd gotten himself off, and Jubilee had helped him escape. But there had been no escape for her, she'd been nailed to the wooden beam for…how long? Days, at least. Weeks, maybe. Even Jubilee wasn't sure, when they'd asked her about it, how long she'd been there. And while she was nailed to it she had been whipped, tortured…to death, it seemed, from her next words.

"…I don't even know when they stopped giving us food and water. I have only a vague recollection of a bag being pulled over my head, and when they took the bag off I was staring at the vertical pieces planted in the ground. They hauled the crosspiece up to the place on the vertical posts, and nailed them down, and then they started nailing my feet. I was so out of it by then I couldn't even scream. My throat hurt, my mouth was dry, I hadn't had anything to drink or eat in so long my vision was blurry and I was weak…and I couldn't make a sound. I saw the mansion…and help was so close…and I couldn't call for help…I couldn't make anyone hear me…and then I woke up in the medlabs, and Ange was…gone…and it was my fault, I had more experience, I should have been able to keep him safe...should have found some way to call for help..." Her voice trailed off in a sob.

Logan hugged her as she started shaking again, as her shoulders shook with the force of her anguish. She'd never really talked to anyone about Bastion; she'd never talked to anyone about the Church of Humanity. She'd never talked about her death and resurrection. "Jubes," his whisper was low, anguished. "Why didn't ya…why didn't ya talk about it? Jean woulda let ya cry on her shoulder; hell, anyone would, once they heard what ya went through. Why'd ya carry all this around fer so long?" All the agony and anguish and terror, bottled up inside…it was a wonder she'd only had nightmares, and she hadn't gone mad.

"Because nobody acted like they cared," she whispered, her throat closed with sobs. "I tried…but there was always something happening, and you were busy…and I tried to talk about it to Frosty, I was that desperate…but she was so emotionally cold, nothing she tried to say sounded sincere, and I ended up telling her very little. I just…tried to bury it all, forget about it, and go on." She tried to push him away, to sit up and dash her tears away.

"No," Logan said to her firmly. "Yer gonna stop holdin' it all in. Let it all out. An' after yer all empty an' ya can move on, I'm gonna start trainin' ya in how ta use yer powers. We're gonna find out how strong ya are, what ya can do, where yer limits are, an' when we're all done, yer gonna be able ta kick ass with the best of us. Got me?"

She turned to him, smiling a little through her tears. "Kick ass like you?" she said, a smile peeking through her tears.

He grinned at her. "Yeah. Like me." He hugged her for a moment more, until she stopped shaking altogether, and pulled her up to a standing position, hugging her as he did. "Come on. Yer breakfast…an' mine, is getting' cold." As they walked back to the cabin, Logan's mind went to work. Finish the addition, today if possible, then the bed should be coming the day after. They'd stay the day just so Jubilee could sleep on the bed she'd picked out for herself, and enjoy a last bit of quiet…and then they'd head for the mansion and her training would begin. He wasn't going to take it easy on her either; she'd had enough of that with Emma and the others coddling her. She needed to get in shape and be able to fight.

She'd hate him by the time it was all over; but she'd thank him the first time she had to fight and she realized how all that training had paid off.


	20. Logan's Training 101

Chapter 20: Logan's Training 101

"Jubes. Wake up."

Jubilee sat up, rubbing her eyes, and frowned as she realized how dark it was outside the pickup's window. "Hey, it's dark," she said.

"Yeah, well, that's normal considering the fact it's almost midnight," Logan said dryly as he turned off the truck's ignition and opened his door. "And it might also have somethin' ta do with the fact that we're in the garage."

"We're home already?" Jubilee stretched her arms above her head and yawned, then jumped out of the truck and reached over the side for her bag. "Ouch."

Logan looked over at her. 'What?"

She shook her head. "Sitting in the seat too long." She sighed as she rubbed her lower back. "Next time, can we take your jeep? It's a little more comfortable."

Logan grinned. "Yeah, we can."

They entered the mansion by the back door, and Jubilee stopped short as she saw the person sitting at the kitchen table, smoking a cigarette in complete defiance of the rules. "Remy! Is my bike the way I left it?"

Remy looked up with what Logan could only describe as a sheepish grin. "Eh, _p'tite_," he said gingerly, feigning surprise at her presence. "Maybe not exactly the way you left it…"

Jubilee squeaked in horror. "Remy, you didn't! My baby!" she exclaimed.

Remy laughed and took his feet off the table, standing up in his boxers and t-shirt and opening his arms to hug her. "Come an' give Remy a hug, _p'tite_."

She eyed him warily. "Not until you tell me what you did with my bike."

He looked hurt, his eyebrows flying upward in mock surprise. "_Chere_! Remy hurt! You lef' your bike wit' him, it safe wit' him! Remy take it out for a good wax job an' a full tank, is all."

Mollified, Jubilee allowed Remy to hug her, then broke off the embrace and headed for the fridge. "Anything good left from dinner?"

Remy made a face of disgust. "_Non_. Emma on kitchen duty tonight, wit' Scott an' Kurt. De only t'ing edible on de table was Kurt's cooking and Scott's burgers."

"I don't particularly care for either," Jubilee grumbled and headed for the kitchen counter, where a loaf of bread sat. "Well, there's plenty of sandwich meat left—"

"Eh, sorry, p'tite," Remy said with a lopsided grin. "After dinner we all attacked the lunchmeat. Not much left except the bologna and liverwurst."

Jubilee wrinkled her nose. "Damn. I'll leave the baloney for Scott and Emma, thank you. Not that they're not already full of it. And liverwurst…" She made a face. "Oh well. I'm heading up to bed, Remy. Good night." She swung her duffel bag over her shoulder and headed out of the kitchen.

"Don't fergit, Jubes! Seven tomorrow morning!" Logan called after her.

"I know, I know," Jubilee turned and walked backward a few steps, blowing a kiss at him and Remy before she turned back around…and almost ran into Xavier, in his hoverchair. "Oh, hi, Charles," she said cheerily, giving him a hug and stifling a yawn. "It's nice being home."

"It's nice having you back as well," Xavier said with a smile. "Did you have a nice time—" but she was gone, bounding up the stairs to her room. He walked into the kitchen instead, and saw Logan and Remy there. "Hello, Logan. It's nice to see both of you back. Did you accomplish what you set out to do?"

Logan sat down at the table heavily. "Yeah," he said. "I got her ta open up about some of the crap that's happened to her."

Xavier waited for Logan to explain, and when he didn't, the older man prodded delicately, "Is there anything we need to know? Or that I need to know?"

Logan clenched his fists on the table, though he carefully kept his claws from popping out. "A lotta stuff happened ta her, Chuck. Not all o' which I'm gonna get inta. But Bastion hurt her badly, mutilated her, really, and the damn Church freaks didn't help much either." He looked up at Xavier. "They nailed Jubilee's hands ta the crossbeam 'fore they got her here. She was nailed to it, an' had ta carry it on her wrists, fer quite a long time; they did it when they first captured her 'cause of the symbology and 'cause it was easier ta control her that way. And they tortured her in front of the entire cult. If it wasn't fer Warren's healing factor healin' her up before she woke, she'd be really heavily scarred now."

Xavier sucked in a breath. Remy looked anguished. They sat like that for some time, then Remy cleared his throat. "What you mean by 'seven o' clock tomorrow morning', Logan?"

"Yes, I did hear that," Xavier said, glad to change the subject. "Will you two be leaving again so soon?"

Logan shook his head. "Nah." He hesitated. "Look, Chuck, I know all this stuff ya talk about 'bout forgivin' yer enemies, an' I realize that Emma ain't the same person we tangled with all those years back…but she wasn't the right teacher fer the Massachusetts Academy kids, an' I don't like her negligence. Jubes let slip that she really don't know what she can do, she ain't really been trained in what she can do, an' that lack o' trainin' cost her her life with them damn Church freaks. She had several chances ta escape if she coulda used her powers effectively, an' because o' that gap in her knowledge she died. I ain't gonna let that stand, Chuck. I can't if she's gonna hang with me, she's gonna have ta learn ta fight, ta protect herself, cause I can't be there all the time. So startin' tomorrow she's gonna enter the Wolverine trainin' program. She's comin' with me on my mornin' run, an' we'll go on from there."

Xavier smiled gently. "I have been aware that her control over herself and her powers, while much better than they were when she came to live with us, are still not as good as would be necessary to join one of the teams. If you could rectify that gap in her education, I would welcome that." He sighed. "I will admit…and this goes no farther than the three of us…I was having a few doubts about Emma's…ability…to supervise the students at the Academy before Operation Zero Tolerance began," he said slowly. "And subsequent events proved my apprehension was correct. It is part of the reason why I closed the school later. Do what you feel you have to, Logan. But remember," he said warningly, "She is, for all her maturity, still young, and she is a woman. There are things that will be impossible for her to do simply because of her gender. Don't push her too hard, Logan, and accept that she might have limitations."

"In other words, don't ask her ta do somethin' she can't do," Logan said. "I won't, Chuck. I'm gonna work her ass off…but I know she's got limits."

Xavier smiled slightly. "When you are satisfied I'll decide which team she is placed on. And I shall keep an eye on her progress. Thank you, Logan. And good night." Xavier turned his hoverchair and quietly left the kitchen.

Remy was quiet for a few minutes, then said. "So you get her to open up, _mon ami_? You get closer to her?"

Logan thought about that first night…and decided to keep that to himself. "We got closer," he said quietly. "But we ain't gonna do the Scott an' Emma thing." He got up. "Good night, Gumbo."

"_Bonne nuit_, Logan." Remy sat for a while in the kitchen, smoking and thinking, and then sighed. "Eh, well, she not really your type anyway," he sighed to himself as he got up and headed for his room.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

A hand fought its way out from under the covers and hit the snooze button, then disappeared back under. Several minutes later there came a tap at the door, and Logan said, "Jubes?"

There was no answer from the somnolent figure under the blanket.

Logan opened the door, walked across the room, and tugged on the bedcovers. "Jubes. Seven o'clock. Up and at 'em."

No answer.

The tugging turned into a shove. "Come on, Jubes."

"Jus' a f'w more minutes…Logan…"

Logan pulled the blankets off Jubilee, swallowing hard when he saw her sleeping in a cutoff tank top and tiny boy briefs that showed an indecent amount of cheek. "Jubilee, I said up. Or I'm gonna haul you inta the shower and wake ya up with cold water."

That got her attention. Grumbling something under her breath about 'impossible demands' she hauled herself up and staggered over to her dresser, coming up with a close-fitting supportive exercise top and biker shorts. Logan watched her put them on, then firmly steered her out of her room, down the stairs, and through the kitchen and out the back door. He ignored the looks of surprise on Ororo's and Warren's and Paige's faces, ignored the frankly disapproving look on Emma's, and guided Jubilee out onto the back lawn.

The fresh, cool morning air seemed to wake her up, and as Logan began to stretch out using _kata_ exercises, she began to follow suit. Logan did all the exercises twice, waiting to see her wake up completely, and when he knew she was, he started to jog. At an easier pace than he was used to, but no need to wear Jubilee out with a flat-out run yet. Ease her into it slowly.

It took almost twenty minutes for Jubilee and Logan to get around the perimeter of Xavier's property. Logan had to stop and give her a breather every six minutes or so, because she got winded easily. 'We're going to work on your stamina," he said to her during one of those rest stops. She nodded, chest heaving, unable to speak for the stitch in her side, and when she caught her breath they went on.

They finished up back on the rear lawn, and Logan led her in a series of exercises meant to cool her down. Then they went in and headed straight for their rooms to shower before breakfast.

Jubilee came back into the kitchen, hair still damp, and went to the cupboard, grabbing the new box of Sugar Bombs. Logan, working on a plate of eggs that Ororo made for him, saw her. "No, Jubes," he said. Her hand froze just before she touched the box. "Ya got too much sugar stored in yer system, an' it's weighin' ya down when we run. There's some whole-grain toast, and bran muffins, an' some low-fat beef sausage on the plate over there."

"No Sugar Bombs?" Jubilee looked aghast. "But I love Sugar Bombs! They're a major food group!"

"Right next ta soda an' candy," Logan told her, rolling his eyes. He grabbed an empty plate, dropped two muffins, a slice of toast, and four sausages on it, stabbed a fork into the sausage, and put it in her hand. She started at it for a few minutes as if it were going to bite her, and put it down, reaching for her glass…only to have her chocolate milk replaced with a glass of orange juice. Logan stared at it for a moment, then put the milk in front of Bobby. "Here, Sugar Boy," he said. "You drink that. Jubilee gets juice." Bobby started to laugh…and Jubilee paffed him in annoyance as she headed out to the dining room with her plate. Logan picked up her juice and followed her, sitting beside her at the table and making sure she ate the food he'd put on her plate. After she'd finished it all, he generously allowed her a slice of white bread toast with a scrape of butter and some strawberry jam (her favorite) and she stopped pouting. He grinned grimly as he watched her eat. She wouldn't be so happy when he made her work that off in the weight room later!


	21. Chapter 20a: Critical Thinking

Interlude: Critical Thinking

Logan tossed and turned.

He and Jubes had returned from the cabin that evening, and, tired from the long drive, she'd gone to bed early. He was tired too, but something still nagged at him, and he couldn't sleep.

Xavier had to have known. He had to have been keeping an eye on the Academy; he had to have known the training wasn't going well. But even after he'd closed the school, he hadn't requested that Jubilee undergo any formal training in her powers. And that was bugging Logan. Scott hadn't brought up the subject. Emma hadn't tried to rectify her mistake. And Sean…well, Sean was only the latest in a long line of people who had been responsible for Jubilee's health, safety, and welfare…and he too had failed her in not mentioning the lack, or trying to correct it, before he'd died.

He slipped downstairs to the War Room. The mansion's security systems were set on automatic alert, so if anything threatened them in the night Cerebro would alert them; but Logan, with his natural distrust of machines (no matter how sophisticated they were) sometimes took it on himself to walk on down to the monitoring room, Cerebro's 'brain', at night. So no one thought it unusual to see him wandering down to the War Room at two in the morning.

He wasn't intending to go and watch the monitors, though. He wanted to see if there were notes in Jubilee's file. Xavier kept extensive records on each member of the X-Men, past, and present. He even the files on the members who had died, because dead X-Men tended to reappear. Jean had demonstrated that several times. Logan had never bothered before to look at Jubilee's file; he tried to avoid paperwork, and their relationship was such that any question he needed to ask her he would normally ask her himself, trusting her to tell him the truth. And she always did.

But this was something he couldn't ask her, and some instinct kept him from confronting Xavier, Scott, or Emma about it. He would have to figure this out on his own.

He pulled up Jubilee's file on the screen and settled in to read.

A long time later he sat back, returning the file to storage, and cursed fervently and at length in the quiet room. There was definitely no way he was getting back to sleep now.

Jubilee had the power potential to be an alpha class mutant. Maybe higher than Alpha class, if such a thing were possible. Almost a demigod, when you looked at the power potential curve. When Xavier had probed her when she first arrived at the mansion, what he'd seen had frightened him, and the first note in her file said that Jubilee's training would center on helping her control her existing powers. She would not be permitted to learn just how powerful she could be, because Xavier was afraid of what might happen if she had all the power and didn't learn any of the moral codes that had to govern power. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely," Xavier had written in Jubilee's file. "She must never know how absolute her power is. She can't be allowed to turn into another Magneto, or another Apocalypse." And so Jubilee's training up till now had been limited. They hadn't set out to find out how extensive her powers were and helping her learn to use that, as Xavier had done with Scott and Remy; hers had been focused on control and limiting what she could do. After the mission debriefing when Jubilee had gotten upset and blew up half the Mandarin's house, the note had been re-entered, and flagged for Emma and Sean's edification when Jubilee went to the Academy.

Logan swore again. If this were anybody else, even him, he would approve; but this was Jubilee. His little pal, his sidekick, his partner. His lifeline, once he'd gotten around to admitting that to himself. She didn't have a mean bone in her body. Look at how she'd handled herself when they found her parents' killers; these were two men who had hurt her in the worst way possible (at the time) and he'd seen the hesitation, her conflicting emotions. She hesitated to kill in cold blood. And even if he _had_ talked her out of killing them, it had still been her decision.

Xavier's decision to limit Jubilee's knowledge of herself to what she already knew because of any potential harm to herself had ended up hurting herself. Logan had seen Jubilee's power capabilities; she could have torn the Hulkbuster base apart from the inside out if she'd known she could do it. She could have freed herself at any time. She could have killed Bastion. But because she didn't know how to do it, she had been horribly abused, violated, and brutalized.

And the Church. The damn Church of Humanity. She could have freed herself; could have saved herself, Angelo, everyone with her. Instead, she'd almost died and she'd lost a friend she still obviously cared very much for. She could have done that…if she'd been allowed to have the knowledge that she needed to do that. And when Jubilee had been set up on the cross on the lawn in the dead of night, Charles had been away somewhere and Jean had slept shielded to try and control her burgeoning Phoenix powers. And they had failed Jubilee by not saving her, by condemning her to die a horrible death on the cross…and only brought her back after she had already flatlined. Because she _was_ dead when Logan and Bobby had taken her down; Logan had been sure of it. It was a miracle that Warren's blood had been able to save her; it hadn't saved Angelo. Her limp weight, her pallor, her bruised face and body, the blood smeared all over her arms and feet; they'd been a mute testimony to how hard she'd struggled to free herself. And it hadn't done any good. She'd still died.

Logan didn't believe that Jubilee had the potential to become the Death Of The World. Maybe she did, power-wise, but she wasn't psychologically capable of that. It wasn't something he could pin down; it was a feeling, an instinct, reinforced by years of watching her. From that very first moment he'd seen her, a scared, skinny street kid helping a strange man she didn't even know off a cross that some very powerful, vicious enemies had nailed him to, and cared for him until he was capable of caring for himself again…he'd known, perhaps instinctively, that she would never be a remorseless killer like he was. She had too much humanity, too much compassion, to do that. Ever. Logan was sure of that.

Xavier was human; he could make mistakes. And Logan was positive that he'd made a mistake in Jubilee's case. Chuck had been horrified and aghast at Jubilee's condition after O:ZT had concluded; Logan wondered if Xavier had regretted his decision. Had she been taught to use her powers to the fullest extent they could be used, she would have been saved the torment Bastion had inflicted on her. Or the Church of Humanity; she would have been spared a long, horrible, slow death from starvation and shock and pain on that damn cross.

Jubilee would never become so drunk with her own power that she would forget the innocents that lived around her, people who were only trying to live their lives. Scott and Emma weren't as culpable of negligence as he'd originally thought, because they were operating on Xavier's orders. Logan couldn't blame them…and although he did blame Chuck for not seeing for himself that the woman Jubilee had become would never be capable of the kinds of atrocities Apocalypse committed, Logan wasn't going to confront any of them on this either. Instead, he'd show everyone they were wrong; that Jubilee's power wouldn't corrupt her; that she would hold back, spare lives and use her powers toward good ends, not evil, when things came to such a pass that she would have to use her powers or die.

And he wasn't the only one who felt that way. Jean's notes had been in Jubilee's file as well; she'd disagreed with Xavier so strongly she'd noted her objection in Jubilee's file. Jubilee was strong, stronger than she herself knew. Jean had been possessed by the Phoenix, that phenomenal cosmic-powered being who had wrought havoc with Jean's cloned body. She knew, better than anyone, what living with powers like that entailed; she knew the struggle to master the impulse to fully lash out in anger of fear or pain. And she had written, in her notes on Jubilee, that she didn't think Jubilee would ever be capable of that kind of unthinking, knee-jerk reaction. She had been closer, in many ways, to Jubilee than Logan himself had been. She knew that Jubilee was terrified of her powers getting out of hand, and indeed had made some attempt to try and control them when she was living on the street. Jubilee knew on some subconscious level what she could do; was terrified that she would lose control and become what Xavier feared she would become. And the simple fact that she was aware of that potential and actively tried to avoid it proved that it wasn't likely that she would become the villain Apocalypse was.

Ororo too had added her own notes. Logan had raised an eyebrow at that. Ororo was, at least to her tribe, a goddess. She controlled the weather, and that was a powerful weapon. Ororo could swamp New York City in a massive tidal wave and kill everyone in the city if she wanted to. But she didn't. And she, too, noted in Jubilee's file that she didn't believe Jubilee was capable of the kind of psychotic egomania that Apocalypse indulged in. In fact, Ororo had said that if Jubilee were allowed to reach her full potential, she could potentially become a huge threat to Apocalypse.

In other words, if Jubilee were allowed to develop to her full potential, she could kick Apocalypse's ass. Logan liked that idea.

He'd added his own note to the file; he didn't think Jubilee had it in her to become the Death Of The World, and he was going to prove it by putting the responsibility in her hands and see what she did with it. In much the same way her parents' killers had ended up in Jubilee's hands, and her humanity warred with her desire for revenge. And in the end, her humanity had won. He noted that he knew she would do the same in every situation in which a choice like that was presented, and he was damned if he was going to let her be victimized and brutalized any further because she might become a villain. She'd have to live long enough to become one, and she'd come close on two occasions to not even living to see her eighteenth birthday!

Notes made and a decision reached, Logan suddenly found himself yawning. Smiling to himself, he headed off to his room to get a couple hours of sleep…and then Jubilee's training would begin.


	22. The Danger Room

Chapter 20: The Danger Room

After breakfast, Logan dragged Jubilee down to the gym with him, where they went through a set of stretching exercises to warm up their (especially Jubilee's) muscles. Then Logan got her going on the bike for fifteen minutes, and then on to the weights…"Not ta make ya a bodybuilder or nothin'," he told her, "But ya gotta learn ta handle weight. If you get injured in a fight ya gotta be able ta get yourself and any other team member out of the way." Jubilee, gritting her teeth as she tried to press the weight bar, nodded and concentrated. Fifteen minutes on the weights, during which time Jubilee didn't complain at all (Logan was rather surprised; some of the things he asked her to do were the same things Scott asked her to do on a regular basis, and she always gave Scott lip about them) and then Logan took her to the Danger Room.

He started her off easy, with a few of the combat robots firing at her until she disabled them. Although they could be rebuilt, he challenged her to only touch them with a small spark, when her instinct, in the heat of the moment, was to let loose with everything she had. "This ain't about takin' em out, Jubes," he said to her. "It's about fine tunin' yer control in the middle of a battle situation." She went through it with only one mistake (one robot exploded when she tried sending paffs in three different directions at once, and hit the same robot with two small paffs) and when all the robots had been 'disabled' Logan stopped the simulation and allowed her to towel off. "Did good," he said gruffly, examining the robots. Most of them only had a light char mark on their casings, and only one would need to be rebuilt by Hank. "Now let's try somethin' else. I'm gonna shield the robots with the strongest shieldin' we got…and I want ya ta heave everythin' ya got at 'em." Jubilee gulped, eyes wide, but went back in without a murmur.

The first robot shot at her, and she paffed it. The thing shook slightly in its housing, and went on shooting. Logan activated two more for random shooting and sat back, watching her go while he watched the power output being absorbed. When Jubilee had disabled all three, he stopped the simulation. "Jubilee? You okay?"

She looked up at him, in the control room, puzzled. "Yeah, why?"

"Yer not puttin' everything ya got in yer shots," he said. "I've seen the readout after a regular Danger Room session; ya put out more then. I want you to throw everything you have. Come on, Jubes. Again."

The power outputs this time were marginally better; but it still wasn't the best he'd seen out of her. He hit the intercom again. "Damn it, Jubilee, quit wastin' my time! Hit 'em with everything ya got, NOW!"

Jubilee lost her temper. He saw her muscles tense; her face flushed, and she bit her lip. "FINE!" she hollered back at him. "Turn the damn thing back on!"

And this time, when he aimed the first robot at her, she did let go with everything she had. A tightly-focused arc of rainbow light lashed out at the first robot, fueled by Jubilee's anger that he would swear at her, and demolished the shielding. Then, almost gently, the sparks infused themselves into each separate crack and cranny in the camera and blew it apart from the inside out. Without missing a beat, she spun, sending that destructive arc of plasmoids against the second robot, and then the third. Her eyes were fairly snapping blue sparks when she turned to face him in the observation booth. "Is that enough?!" She snapped.

Logan nodded finally. "Yeah. Yeah, that was enough." He frowned. "Jubilee, just how much power can you put out?"

"I don't know," Jubilee said, staring down at her hands, anger gone. "I've never tried letting it all go. I mean, when I first got here, my problem was keeping it down; I worked so hard at toning them down to prevent damage to stuff around me when I got mad that I never stopped and tried to find out how much I could tone them up."

Logan frowned. "Why don't we try it."

Jubilee looked around. "Here?"

Logan shrugged. "It's as good a time as any. Wanna know what you can do."

Jubilee shrugged. "Suit yourself." She closed her eyes, and raised her hands. Her face grew still, oddly serene, as the rainbow of plasmoid sparks grew and grew to almost impossible proportions in her hands. When her eyelids flew open, her eyes were glowing—yes, _glowing_—with the power she was calling up from inside her. And then she released it, in a burst of light and sound.

Logan actually flinched away from the window in a purely instinctive reaction, trying to shield his eyes from the explosive force rattling the observation window. Even as the brilliance faded, he was taking the steps from the observation room to the Danger Room floor two at a time.

Jubilee was sitting in the middle of the room, looking very much as though her legs had simply collapsed under her. And she was blinking. "Jubilee? Are you okay?"

She turned toward him, still looking somewhat dazed. "Wow. I didn't know I could do that," she said, staring at her hands. "I never knew I was capable of that much power."

"Now we have ta figure out how to focus that power." Logan held a hand out to her, and she took it carefully, pulling herself up onto her feet…and then staggered.

Logan caught her, steadying her carefully. "Ya okay?" he said, looking at her face. She still seemed dazed.

"Yeah. I'm okay." she said, her voice small. "Logan?"

"Yeah, Jubes?"

"Think we can…do more tomorrow? I feel…kinda tired right now. Empty."

Logan peered at her…and then took a sniff. Aside from the smell of exploded air (it wasn't a smell he could ever explain to anyone; the closest he'd ever come to a similar scent was the smell of the air after Ororo had called down a burst of lightning) he could also smell her exhaustion. She had enough for today. "Yeah," he said. "Take the afternoon off. Seven o' clock tomorrow, okay?" She nodded wearily and started to trudge out of the room.

The doors burst open, and Scott and Emma stood there, with Hank, Bobby, Warren, Paige, and Remy behind them. "What's going on? Are you all right?" Then Scott saw the combat robots. "Damn it, Jubilee, when will you learn to be careful!?"

Jubilee backpedaled a bit, and Logan put an arm behind her shoulders, steadying her. "She did it 'cause I told her ta, Cyke," he said, trying to keep his temper on a leash. He didn't want to get in an argument with Scott right now. "We were testin' the limits o' her power." He added, a bit more testily, "Don't swear at her, it wasn't her fault."

Hank peered at Jubilee over his glasses. "Jubilation, are you aware that the shock wave from the concussive blast you released during your training exercise reverberated throughout the mansion? I am certain that everyone who felt the house quake will shortly be down here requesting an explanation."

**Is everyone all right? What was that? What happened?** came Charles' telepathic voice, just as Jono, Ororo, and Annie arrived in the doorway too.

**What happened, gel?** came Jono's telepathic voice.

Jubilee seemed to have recovered a bit. Rolling her eyes, she said aloud, "Wolvie and I were seeing just how much power I could call up. I was in control, if it looked like it was going to seriously damage anything I would have pulled it all back in, but Wolvie wanted to see what I could do," And she stepped back behind him, resting her chin on his shoulder, and said to him sweetly, "I figured something like this would happen. They'd all come running down here like I really tried to destroy the mansion or something, and we'd get in trouble. Ball's in your court."

Logan shot her a dirty look, which she replied to with a tired but wicked smile, and turned to everyone standing in the doorway. "We was practicin' around a little with her power." And to the absent but still listening Charles, he said, "Ya did say I could."

Emma's eyes went unfocused for a second, and they all heard her words. **Charles, you would allow Jubilee to simply release her power like that? Don't you know she could have damaged the mansion?**

**I'm acquainted with the nature and intensity of her power, Emma,** Xavier said, and his tone was so dry Logan had to suppress a smile. **Jubilee knows as well. We've all experienced little examples of her particular ability going out of control. Which is why I told Logan he could go ahead and test and train her abilities.**

**But she already was trained at the Academy! Her control over her powers is much better, and she doesn't cause all that random destruction anymore! I trained her!** Emma sounded indignant.

Xavier was quiet for a short time. **We will discuss that at a future time, and not in public,** and his mental voice got a few degrees cooler. **For now, though…Logan, Jubilee is extremely tired, and perhaps a shower and some rest will not go amiss. I am sure you all have other things to do as well.** It wasn't phrased as a dismissal, but it had all the finality of one. Logan watched as the knot of people melted away, like fog before the morning sun. Paige alone remained. As Jubilee slipped through the door on her way to the locker room and the showers, Paige intercepted her, and the two girls walked off together, whispering. Logan watched her go, smiling to himself, and then snapped to attention as Xavier said on a tight telepathic thread, **Emma, Logan, Scott, I'd like to speak with the three of you in my study, if it's convenient.**

They headed for his study.

Paige grabbed Jubilee's hand. I heard Logan dragging you out of bed this morning, but I didn't know what was going on," she said. "And why didn't you tell me?"

Jubilee stared at Paige in surprise. "Why? Should I have?"

Paige rolled her eyes. "Of course you should, Jubes!" They reached the shower room, and she turned around as Jubilee stripped off her sweat-soaked clothes and wrapped a towel around herself, then followed as Jubilee headed for the showers. "We're friends, right? We tell each other stuff. And if Logan's going to start teaching you how to use your powers more effectively than Frosty taught us, you should let me know!"

Jubilee's head stuck out of the tiny shower cubicle. "Really? You don't think Emma did a good job teaching us?"

Paige rolled her eyes again. "Neither Jono or I thought she did a good job. I mean, all that time you went missing, and she didn't notice! We thought you were safe back there with her, and in the melee that followed our return we thought she'd sent you back to the X-Men for safekeeping while she and Sean went looking for us! Imagine our surprise when you came back all worn out and scared looking and we found out where you were and what happened to you!" Paige's voice softened. "You had a lot of nightmares back then, Jubes. Worse than the ones you have now. You'd talk in your sleep sometimes. What Monet and I heard was enough to give us nightmares sometimes."

Jubilee's eyes dropped. "I'm sorry." Her head disappeared back into the shower.

"Don't be. It wasn't your fault. You were the youngest out of all of us, age-wise, although it didn't seem like it experience-wise." Paige cleared her throat. "After all, all that time hanging with Logan…you hadda have picked up something." And she yelped as Jubilee hurled a wet shower cap over the shower curtain at her.

"Just for that…" Jubilee said, a wicked, merry look in her eyes as she climbed into her clothes and emerged from the shower cubicle dressed, "I get first dibs on the roast beef in the lunchmeat drawer!"

She took off running, leaving Paige to run along behind her, wailing, "Jubilee, no fair, you had a head start, no FAIR!!"

Logan slumped into the chair across from Xavier's desk, staying quiet as Scott sat down in the other chair. Emma seated herself, very primly, on the arm of Scott's chair. Logan again wished, for the umpteenth time, that Jean were still there. He missed seeing her long legs draped over the edge of Xavier's desk, missed seeing her hips edged comfortably up on the cleared space at the end, space that Xavier still left mostly cleared, probably out of force of habit.

Xavier picked up on what Logan was thinking. He gave the cleared end of the desk a sad look, caught Logan's eye, and pulled a piece of paper over that corner so the bare wood was covered. He gave Logan a smile, then composed his features as he turned to Scott and Emma.

"Logan informed me, when he arrived home yesterday, that he was disappointed with the progress Jubilee has made toward gaining complete control of her powers. He felt, and I agreed, that certain…unfortunate events…of the past few years could have been avoided if Jubilee had a more conscious control and a better understanding of how her powers work."

Emma shifted on the arm of Scott's chair, and Scott reached out to steady her almost unconsciously. _He used to do the same thing with Jean_, Logan noted to himself, even though Jean was a telekinetic and could have righted herself on her own. "I trained her adequately," Emma said irritably, though to Logan's ears she sounded slightly defensive. "With all the other things that were happening—Sean and I did the best we could—"

"I am sure you did," Xavier said, although his voice lacked conviction. "But as you said, with all the things that were happening around you, there wasn't much time to do more than teach the basics, and that only in theory, on paper. Jubilee has learned, on an intellectual level, what she can and can't do…but there's a great deal of difference between learning theory and putting theory into practice. She has little practical experience, which was why I asked you, Scott, not to put Jubilee, Husk and Chamber in a team. I realize that alienated them a little, but they simply weren't ready.

"There weren't really adequate facilities for you to really concentrate on teaching her those practical applications, and Logan was kind enough to volunteer to help you in that regard. And I approved it. Logan has seen her in action, and has a better understanding of what Jubilee is capable of, precisely because they have been friends for many years."

"More than friends," Emma muttered.

Xavier raised an eyebrow, but didn't seem surprised at her comment. "Indeed. While many of us looked at their…relationship…as a father-daughter one, I think it's mostly been that of a mentor and protégé. If they choose to make that relationship…closer…now than they have in the past, it's none of our business. They are both adults, and as such are capable of their own decisions. Jubilee has had enough turmoil in her life, and Logan has been the one constant. I think it would be good for her to finally have an anchor to hang on to." Logan blinked in surprise, staring at Charles.

"That having been said," Xavier turned to Logan, "I trust that, in your training, you will remember that she is still young, and that she doesn't have a healing factor like you do, and she does have limits. And I really do not appreciate having my afternoon upset by what sounds like a volcano going off under my house." His twinkling eyes, however, said that he wasn't really upset. It was only as Logan looked down at the desk that he realized that Xavier had a cup of tea on his desk when Jubilee's mega-plasmoid had gone off in the Danger Room. The glass had shattered, and there was spilled tea all over whatever he'd been looking at. He looked up sheepishly. "In the future, I'd appreciate it if you would warn us before doing anything like that again, Logan."

"Yeah. I'll do that." It seemed inadequate, but Logan looked at the damp papers and said, "Sorry."

Emma and Scott left the room right after him, but neither one said a word to him, just headed off down the hall toward their own room,talking. Logan hesitated for a moment, but decided against confronting Emma now. Instead he headed for the kitchen. "If Jubes is eating junk food, I'll whack her ass," he grumbled to himself.


	23. Partners In Training

Chapter 22: Partners in Training

Logan stepped out the back door, closed it, turned around…and groaned when he saw who was waiting for him.

Two pairs of blue eyes studied his expression with amusement. "Hey, Wolvie, it's not like it's the end of the world or anything," Jubilee grinned. She turned to the owner of the other pair of blue eyes. "See, I told you he was going to do this."

"Yeah," Paige said, grinning as she held Jubilee's ankles. Jubilee was on her back in the grass, doing sit-ups, with Paige holding her ankles. "You did. Come on, don't tell me the big bad Wolverine's afraid of two little girls like us?" She grinned cheekily.

Logan finally found his voice "I ain't runnin' a mini-trainin' program here for wayward girls," he finally sputtered. Then he saw the tall, spare form leaning against the side of the house watching the girls do sit-ups…and amended, "For wayward ex-Academy members!"

Jono pushed away from the wall. **I didn't think we'd be welcome, gel…** he said to Paige.

Jubilee grabbed Paige's arm, preventing her from getting up. "Oh, come on. Wolvie won't mind. Really. After all, he doesn't think Emma did a good job training us either."

Jono looked at Logan. **You don't, mate?**

Slowly, reluctantly, Logan shook his head. "No. I don't. She wasn' a good teacher fer any o' you kids."

**We've pretty much got an idea what we can do. We're just here for the physical stuff in the mornings,** Jono said. **Then you and Jubes can have the afternoons in the Danger Room.**

Logan watched the three friends talk as he went through his _kata_. Jubilee was fairly competitive…and having to train alongside her friends might be an additional motivation. By the time he finished, they were done as well, and they eyed him with trepidation as they waited for his verdict.

"All right," he said finally. "Ya two can join us. But keep up, an' no whinin' from either one o' you." He looked at Jubilee and Paige.

"Hey, no fair, what about him?" Paige pointed indignantly at Jono.

**I don't whine, gel,** Jono said, narrowing his eyes as he looked at her. If he had a mouth, he'd be frowning, Logan thought. It was a shame the kid's mutant gift had blown out half his face and chest; he would have made a handsome man.

To forestall any more argument and bickering between his three pupils, Logan led the way off through the bushes, starting the daily jog around the perimeter of the Xavier estate. He and Jubilee had been doing this for almost two weeks now; she knew the route, and followed. Taking a few glances back, he noted with approval that Jubilee seemed to be toning down. While she hadn't exactly been fat before, now she was slimmer and much more muscled. Her stamina was better; she didn't have to stop as often as she had when he'd started dragging her out on his morning run. Fewer stops and better stamina and muscle tone had shaved minutes off their run time, a fact that Jubilee had found particularly pleasant; it was that much sooner that she could go in and indulge in a hot shower.

Having Paige and Jono along gave her extra motivation and distracted Jubilee from her own aches and pains. In fact, Logan decided after they had gone a quarter of the way around the estate that he liked having the others accompanying on their morning run; Jubilee spent most of her time talking a mile a minute to Jono and Paige when she usually spent that time talking to him. And he liked the quiet on his morning run.

They spent much of their time reminiscing about their days back at the Academy, tossing around comments like, "Do you remember when Emma did this?" and "Do you remember the time Sean did that?" He got quite an education into what the former headmaster and mistress had actually been doing at the school with the kids supposedly under their care, and by the time they finished their run, Logan understood why they'd chosen to join Jubilee's physical training program with him.

He checked his watch when they finished their run and was surprised to realize they'd done the run in fifteen minutes. It hadn't seemed that long to him. He and Jubilee had gotten used to doing the run in ten minutes, so the two other kids (Logan couldn't help thinking of them as kids, especially when one of the 'kids' was Sam's little sister) hadn't slowed them down too much.

"Not bad," he said gruffly, looking at the three sweating, panting people standing in front of him. "Same time tomorrow morning. Don't think that I won't be as hard on ya two as I am with Jubes; now that ya made a point o' includin' yerselves, I ain't gonna let ya slack off. If ya ain't here at seven tomorrow mornin', I'm gonna hunt ya down a' drag ya outta bed if I have ta. An' I don't care whoever else's sleep I might be disturbin' in the process," with a warning look at Paige. "If Wings in there don' like it, he can take it up with ya." He grinned.

Paige's eyes flew open. "Oooh. No, I don't think I want to explain to Warren why you're barging in on us." She shook her head, her expression almost comical. "No, I won't be late. Seven o'clock tomorrow, yes Sarge!" She snapped a sloppy military salute, winked at Jubilee, then grabbed Jono's hand. "Come on. Let's go." They disappeared into the mansion, leaving Jubilee alone with Logan.

Logan turned to Jubilee as she came up beside him. "Ya coulda warned me," he growled as Jubilee started to walk around in large circles, trying to cool down.

Jubilee shrugged. "Hey, I didn't know either," she said. "Paige just showed up in her jogging outfit and asked if I thought you'd mind if she and Jono joined us. I told her I didn't think you would. Did you mind terribly?" she asked.

Logan was about to say yes, and saw her face. "Nah," he said, reaching out to rub her shoulder. "Naw, I didn't really mind. It was a surprise, that's all."

She gave him a quick peck on the cheek, and he was again reminded forcibly of how much she'd grown when she had to drop her head just slightly. "I knew you wouldn't mind. See you at breakfast." And she picked her towel up and looped it around her neck, disappearing into the mansion.

Logan followed suit, but was mildly surprised when he got back down and found no one in the kitchen. Shrugging, he headed for the coffeemaker and poured himself a cup, then sat down and waited for the girls to come in.

Warren was the next one to walk in, yawning and rubbing his eyes. He gave Logan a glare as he poured himself a cup, and slumped into a chair at the kitchen table as he sipped.

"What?" Logan narrowed his eyes at the grumpy look in Warren's eyes. "What'd I do?"

"I woke up this morning by myself." Warren continued to pout.

"What, Paige?" Logan shook his head. "She came out to join Jubilee an' me on our mornin' run."

"Yeah. It's your fault I woke up alone." Warren grumbled.

"Hey, I didn't drag her out ta come runnin' with us. She came out herself. But now that she has invited herself, if she don't come on time, I will be draggin' her outta bed myself," Logan threatened.

Warren yelped, sitting bolt upright. "You're not invading my room first thing in the morning!"

Logan shook his head. "She made a point outta invitin' herself, She's gonna pay the price fer it now," Logan said firmly.

"But I need my beauty sleep!" Warren protested.

"Hah!" Logan punched Warren lightly on the arm. "You're beautiful enough, trust me. After all, ya got a young little thing like Paige interested in yer mug."

"And you got Jubes interested in you!" Warren shot back.

"She an' I are just friends, Warren. Don't go there." Logan warned the younger man.

Warren sat back, looking at Logan thoughtfully over the rim of his coffee cup. "Are you sure? Because when she looks at you, that's not what we see. And you went and dragged her off to your cabin for a couple of weeks. And we all know she still spends some nights in your room. Emma grumbles enough about the propriety of that so we all know. She seems to have made breaking you and Jubilee up her priority."

Logan put his cup down. "Really."

Warren realized what he'd just said. "Uh, no…um…yes…well…" He flushed. "Okay. Well, yes. But you didn't hear it from me, or I'll have a headache for a week that Hank will have to sedate me for." He looked at Logan again. "If it's any consolation, she's alone in her opinion."

"Really?" Logan was surprised.

"Yeah." Warren sighed and sipped his coffee. "Just between you and me, very few other people share her opinion. Scott and she have had arguments about it. Scott doesn't really approve, but apparently Charles doesn't mind, so Scott's determined not to let it really bother him. A couple of the others think it's not exactly right, but they know Jubilee's an adult and she can make her own decisions and face the consequences. Ororo thinks much the same thing. Hank likes the idea, so does Remy, so do some of the others…but you'll never hear them tell you that."

Logan sat back, mind whirling. "Jubes and I haven't…we haven't done anything…"

"No, but don't tell me you haven't thought about it. Remy has. Bobby has. She's really grown into a beautiful, desirable young woman, Logan. The problem is, she's only got eyes for you, so she won't even look at anybody else. Remy's gotten a little grumpy about it lately."

Ah, hell. Now Logan realized what all those dark looks he'd been getting from Remy were about. "I can't see of Jubes like that," he insisted. "Really. Not even close. She's my friend, my pal. I haven't even thought o' her like that." Except maybe that first night at the cabin, under the stars…but that had been momentary, and he had no intention of repeating it. And he'd told her that at the time.

"Hmm. Well, I guess she'll eventually get over it," Warren said. And then Ororo came downstairs, and the topic of conversation shifted.

But Logan kept thinking about it.

The Danger Room was in use when he went to see if it was available for himself and Jubilee. They'd been working on her control the last few weeks. Instead of reacting with a full-out blast as she always did, he was teaching her to evaluate a situation and learn how much force she'd require. The problem with her was that when she got into high-stress situations, she tended to react with a great deal of power, thus wearing herself out and leaving her tired and vulnerable later in a battle.

In a long, sustained battle, she'd be useless during the latter half because she expended too much energy during the first half. He'd seen that the first several simulations he put her through in the Danger Room; and it was a weakness that an enemy could easily exploit once they realized. So Logan was teaching her to respond to a threat with an equal level of force, not a greater. After all, as he explained it to her, if you swat a mosquito with your only nuclear bomb, what are you going to use when a tarantula the size of your body comes after you? She had laughed at the analogy, agreed, and concentrated on swatting mosquitoes with a swatter, not a bomb. Small threats, like the combat robots, she was expending only enough energy to disable; larger targets, like Sentinels or the Brotherhood, she used larger plasmoids for. She was getting better at it; now she just had to learn to think on her feet.

He found the room occupied, and decided to spend some time in the gym. That too, was occupied, by Emma and Scott, and he turned away quickly, not wanting to run into them. Of Jubilee there was no sign. Mystified, he went looking for her.

He found her, finally, sitting on the warm grass on the back lawn with Paige and three of the mansion's younger residents; Jay, Paige and Sam's little brother (Logan shook his head; there were too many Guthries around here. First Sam, then Paige, and now Jay; how many more could there be?); Carter, Annie's son; and Sammy, Cain's little friend. The three youngsters were watching Jubilee create shapes with her rainbow plasmoids in the air; shimmering fairies with rainbow wings, little rainbow cars that zoomed around in midair on an imaginary track, and finally a sinuous, twining Chinese dragon that breathed rainbow fire that exploded into showy displays of colored light. It was rather too bright outside to really get the full effect of them (Logan thought that must be a wonderful show when it was dark, at night) but they were still impressive nevertheless. He stared at the Chinese dragon, which resembled nothing so much as a long rainbow serpent, and told himself he had to think of a way that that particular talent could be used tactically, in a battle.

She saw him standing there, thought it was time for her lesson, and excused herself, running quickly to his side. "Are Scott and Emma done with the gym?" she asked him.

"Dunno. Let's go find out." They walked into the house, and he looked down at her. "Warren says everyone thinks we're an 'item'."

Jubilee looked down at her feet. 'Yeah. Well, I know what you said about it but I didn't really want other people to know I'm avoiding them so I kind of used you as an excuse to avoid having to confront any of them—"

Logan stopped. "Why are ya avoidin' everyone?" he asked her.

Jubilee dropped her eyes. "I'm still…really insecure…I mean, all the stuff that happened to me…You helped me a lot, back up at the cabin, but I'm still kinda 'fraid of anyone touching me…" She seemed to curl up into herself.

Logan sighed. "Oh, Jubilee. If ya spend the rest o' yer life puttin' stuff between yerself and an interested guy, yer gonna miss out on a lotta stuff."

"That's what Remy said." Jubilee's voice was still small. "He asked me if I wanted to go to Ladies' Night at the Cajun Blu Bar and Grill with him and Bobby and Rogue and Paige and Warren and I turned him down. He got a little upset, and he told me if I keep waiting for something that isn't going to happen, I'll miss out on a lot of good stuff."

"Ya will." Logan looked at her. "Listen ta me. You go an' have fun with them. Get drunk or smashed or whatever ya wanna do. Got it?"

Slowly, she nodded.

"Good. Let's go chase Scott and Emma out of the gym."


	24. Bad Program

Chapter 23: Bad Program

Logan raised an eyebrow when he saw Jubilee's bed was empty. Hmm. Had she gotten up already, and he missed seeing her on the way out? He retraced his steps outside and waited for her on the snow-dusted back lawn.

Five minutes. He suppressed a growl as he stalked back into the house. She wasn't in her room, she wasn't out here for the morning run…there was only one other place she could be. Especially after last night.

He flung open the door to Remy's room, grimly pleased that he'd been right. Jubilee was snuggled up next Remy on his queen-sized bed. Both she and Remy were sleeping soundly, snoring slightly.

He was mildly pleased with the sight. She was a healthy, happy, beautiful twenty-three year old, and yet in the time since she'd come back, she'd never gone on a date. Nor had she ever even hinted at one while she was in college. Apparently last night she had taken his advice and gone out with Remy and the others. From where he stood, by the door, he could smell the faint odor of alcohol on her breath.

And Paige had gone with them, hadn't she? Warren and Paige's names were among the ones Jubilee had mentioned in the group of people going on last night's outing. So after this he was going to have to go roust Paige out too.

He tiptoed into the room, reached out to grab a handful of the covers and pull them back…and froze when he heard Jubilee's voice, muffled by the pillow but still audible. "Don't even think about it, Wolvie."

He crossed his arms. "Then get outta bed."

Her rumpled, tousled head came lazily up out of the pillow. "Come on, Wolvie, it's like, forty degrees out there. I'm not running around out there in the snow and cold." The dark head burrowed back into the pillow. "I'll do some extra time on the treadmill later."

"I don't think so," Logan growled, and reached for the blankets again.

"You don't want to do that," Jubilee's head came out of the pillow again. "Really."

Just them, Remy groaned and rolled over, rubbing his eyes. "Where's t'emergency, Jubes?" he slurred.

"No emergency, Rems." Jubilee covered her mouth as she yawned. "Just Logan."

'Just Logan'? Logan was offended. He reached out, grabbed the end of the blanket, and whisked it off the sleepy couple in the bed.

And immediately wished he hadn't. Red-faced and embarrassed, he turned around, desperately trying to squeeze the sight out of his head.

Jubilee giggled. "See, I told you you didn't want to do that," she pointed out with malicious sweetness.

Remy, the damn ass, sat back against the headboard of the bed and grinned insouciantly at the back of Logan's head. "Like what you see, _mon ami_?"

"Get some clothes on, both of you. Jubes, I want ya out there in ten minutes!" He fled the room, hearing the whisper of Jubilee's laughter and Remy's amused chuckle follow him down the hall as he went to Paige and Warren's room.

He tapped on the door, loud enough to wake the occupants of the room. He heard rustling sheets, Paige's hissed, "It's Logan! Stay there or he's gonna see—" And he flushed again. Seconds later, Paige, wearing another one of Warren's t-shirts, opened the room door. "I know, I know, I'm late, I'll be out there in ten minutes." The door slammed in his face.

**Must have been a very interesting night last night,** came a telepathic voice in Logan's head. He turned…and saw Jono coming out of his room on the other side of the hall, dressed in cold-weather running clothes. **Is Jubes up yet?**

Logan flushed even pinker. "Yeah, she's up." He stumped back down the hall and down the stairs, through the mansion to the kitchen and out the back door.

After the heat inside, it really did seem colder out here. Even for him. He and Jono started with _kata_, using the familiar movements to keep themselves warm, and waited for Jubilee and Paige.

Just as he was about to head back in and get them again, they came out, tittering behind their hands and looking suspiciously happy for two people who'd just been roused from sleep. They did some brief stretching exercises, then set off on their morning run around the perimeter of the estate. And as they ran, Logan had to fight not to lose his temper as he caught snatches of conversation and giggles about his accidental view of what was under Remy's covers.

They finished their run in record time, the girls actually making it to the 'finish line'—the patch of lawn in front of the back door, ahead of Logan and Jono. They hardly even waited for the two men to pull up behind them before they were opening the door to the kitchen to go in.

"Jubes," Logan said. Paige looked at Jubilee. Jubilee looked at Paige. Paige went in without a word, tugging Jono with her, and Jubilee turned to Logan. "I did warn you," she said, still slightly amused.

"Yeah, I know," Logan grumped, stamping in a circle to keep warm. "I was the damn fool who didn't think that you and Remy might…well…"

"Nothing happened, Logan," Jubilee said quietly, but still amused. "You might not have noticed, you turned around too fast…but I was still dressed. Well, sort of." She flushed at the memory of the pink underclothing she'd been wearing. "Not that I wasn't okay with anything happening…but Remy said there's time for everything, and he said he wanted to wait for a time when I wasn't drunk. I was…sort of plastered when we got home last night, and the last thing I remember is Remy putting me down in bed, undressing and getting in himself, and then we fell asleep."

Logan smiled at her, reluctantly. Remy wasn't the one he'd have picked for Jubilee…but then again, he didn't know anyone he would have picked for her; everyone he could think of in the mansion came up rather short in his ideal of 'suitable for Jubilee'. However, he wasn't her father, he wasn't her brother, he was in no way related to her, and if he tried to tell her who she could or couldn't hang around with, he would be no better than Scott was. And she was already upset with Scott; he didn't want her mad at him.

"Just be careful, okay?" he said, ruffling her hair. "I don't wanna have ta interrupt yer trainin' fer…complications."

Jubilee smoothed her hair back down with an indignant expression. "I know about that," she said. "Jean and Ororo had…The Talk…with me a long time ago." She laughed at Logan's comical expression. "I'll be sure, Logan. After all, I don't want complications either." She laughed again and whisked herself into the mansion before the swat he aimed at her could connect.

He admired the sass behind the remark, even if he was a little uncomfortable with the topic. He didn't want to think of his kid having kids. "Damn, I feel old," he groaned as he opened the door and stepped back into the kitchen.

As good as the mansion's heating systems were, they still couldn't combat the underground chill.

Logan was rather glad of it, in a way. He'd been working intensively with Jubilee the last few weeks, training her to ignore distractions and concentrate on what she was doing. Singlemindedness—or more accurately, stubbornness—was one of her traits, so he simply used that to his advantage.

She still did plenty of looking, but that was for the best. Like now, as her eyes flicked toward one of the combat robots, mounted on an antigravity platform zooming randomly around the room, alternately shooting at her, at the wall, ceiling, and floor. Her eyes picked up Robot Two's position, firing speed, projected path, assessed it's threat level, and dismissed it. Logan could almost hear her thinking, _That one isn't going to reach me_ _before the one I'm looking at will, so I'll deal with this one first before I take that one out_. Deed followed thought, and he watched her paff Robot One, with which she was currently dealing before turning toward the robot Logan had been watching. Since the robot was firing weakly, she used an equal (not greater) amount of energy in her paff.

Robot Three came up behind her, and she flung herself out of the way as the laser light hissed through the space she'd just vacated. This one was firing with a greater percentage of energy than the other one had: Jubilee met it with a bigger paff than she had just used on Robot Two. Then Robot One came 'back to life' and started firing at her again, and she switched effortlessly, almost unthinkingly, from big paffs to smaller ones. They had done this so many times that for her this was becoming instinct. Logan nodded approvingly, even as he heard the door to the observation room open. His sensitive nostrils picked up the scent of mechanic's oil, metal gears, Old Spice aftershave, and Earl Grey tea. There was only one person in the entire mansion who combined all of those scents. "Hey, Chuck," he said, not even bothering to turn around. "Came ta see how the trainin' was goin'?"

Xavier guided his hoverchair over to where Logan was standing at the window and watching Jubilee. He didn't respond immediately, his attention captured by the girl in the room below. "Interesting costume," he said finally.

Logan grinned. "Isn't it?" He remembered saying much the same thing when he'd first seen it. Jubilee had shown up in the Danger Room one morning wearing a black body suit with bold red patches of color in random spots all over her body and two narrow but long red stripes running from the ends of her collarbones to her ankles. Logan had looked askance at her costume…and she had shrugged. "The vertical lines make me look slimmer," she said.

It wasn't until he saw her in action that he realized her purpose. The black made her blend with the shadows, and the red patches looked like targets; but when he focused the robot's lasers at those red patches, reasoning that that was where an enemy would focus an attack, he'd discovered that those seemingly random patches were placed at strategically defensible parts of her body and left the vulnerable parts of her in shadow. When one of the lasers had grazed a bright patch on her arm, he had tried to shut the simulation down hurriedly…only to find she had 'killed' the thing, with her wounded arm, just before he turned it off.

"It draws fire away from the vulnerable parts o' her body, the parts that might be seriously injured or permanently crippled, an' focuses an attacker's attention on places that ain't as vital. It was a neat little trick I hadn't thought of. Aside from usin' the black stripes on my costume to break up my outline, I never thought 'bout doing that. An' Jubilee has another one for use in high-light situations, a sort o' neutral beige color that'll work well in say, desert conditions."

Xavier looked impressed. "And when she moves the contrast between the red and the black are strong enough that it makes it difficult for an enemy to focus," he said. "I find my eye so distracted by the color I find it hard to focus on any one part."

Logan looked at Jubilee, taking out another round of combat robots. "I hadn't noticed that," he said. "But yeah, I see what ya mean. It does." He went over to the controls, touching one here and there, and the robots stopped moving and retracted into the walls. "Phase two," he said. That was all the warning Jubilee got.

Several members of the Brotherhood sprang into existence around her, and so did the image of a darkened alley. She went into motion as they started to reach for her. Darting, weaving, in and out between the opponents and various items in the alley, hiding and paffing them from behind trashcans. The darting black and red blur seemed difficult for them to hit, and it wasn't long before they were all gone.

And things went berserk.

Several things happened at once. The entire room went dark; the only sign of enemies came from vague outlines in the darkness. And then a barrage of lasers came out of the darkness, aiming for Jubilee. The brief bursts of light illuminated the small black and red figure, who was now in a flat-out run around the room, trying to avoid the attacks of enemies she couldn't see.

"Logan…" Xavier said warningly.

Logan flung himself down in the chair, frantically pressing switches and buttons. "I dunno what's wrong, Chuck…it won't turn off!" He gasped. "Dammit…need to see what's happening… the blasted computer's not respondin'!"

"Observation window: infrared," Xavier snapped, and the window immediately switched to an infrared view. Logan and Xavier could see her zig-zagging, somehow incredulously managing to stay clear of the indistinct figures scattered around the room. Her frenetic running seemed to be random, but Logan's mind suddenly identified the pattern. She was crossing the room, from one wall to the other, getting a fix on where her various enemies were, paffing them when she could. Then, apparently giving up on that, seeing that it was wearing her down, she came to a stop in the middle of the room, and sent up a shower of sparks. These didn't explode in the air, as they normally did; they hung there, like suspended fireflies. They didn't light the whole room up, but the light was enough for her to identify the closest wall. She went to it, put her back up against it, and prepared herself for a fight. And as she did, she yelled, "Logan!"

"I dunno what's wrong! It went off on its own!" Logan called into the intercom. "Hang on, Chuck's here and he's trying to figure out what's going on!"

Jubilee nodded grimly. Already tired from the workout, she couldn't afford to fight offensively. All she could do was wait for Xavier and Logan to halt the program.

The program, however, wasn't going to give her that option, The tactile holograms suddenly shifted, and she found herself standing in the middle of an empty space. And the figures were closing in around her.

For one wild, irrational minute she thought she was somehow back at the Hulkster base, feeling small and helpless as the cruel guards closed in around her… And she had to fight the panic that welled up in her. _The Danger Room_, she told herself firmly. _I'm in the Danger Room. They can't hurt me unless I let_ _them_. So she started firing plasmoids at the hulking figures. One went down with a crash…then another…and another…and another.

Xavier hit a final sequence of buttons, typing a last set of orders into the Danger Room's computer…and everything stopped. The lights inside came on, and Jubilee released her hold on the plasmoids, allowing them to explode as they willed now. And as the lights came on, she slid limply to the ground, too tired to laugh.

The 'laser weapons' being held by the 'enemies' were laser pointers, and each 'enemy' was actually a holographic representation of the various X-Men, each wearing a ridiculous birthday hat (even Emma). And a banner across the back of the room said 'Happy Birthday Bobby!'

At just that moment, the door opened, and Hank and Paige rushed inside…and saw Jubilee in the Danger Room, amid the shambles of the hologram. "Jubilee? My stars and garters,what on Earth happened?"

"What happened?" Paige echoed. "It wasn't set to go off until Bobby came in an hour from now!"

Between them, they got it worked out. It was Bobby's birthday; Hank and Paige had set up the simulation to scare Bobby when he entered the Danger Room for his practice session. It had gone off an hour early, due to the time change (someone had forgotten to reset the Danger Room clock for Daylight Savings time) and Jubilee had been caught in it. She had never been in danger; but she reacted like she had been, and acted accordingly. They shut the Danger Room down so Hank and Paige could reset the simulation, and Jubilee leaned wearily against Logan's shoulders as they followed Xavier back to the kitchen.

She dropped wearily into a chair, gulping a bottle of water, as Xavier looked at her thoughtfully. "You've come a long way since you started training this fall with Logan," he said thoughtfully. "I don't like admitting that I was wrong about my approach to Jubilee's training, but I think I would have to now. And I think it's time that Jubilee took a place on one of the teams as a full member. Do you have a specific team in mind, Jubilee, or would you prefer I assign you to one?"

"Really?" Jubilee's eyes popped. "Cool. Um…I don't really care who else is on my team as long as Wolvie's on it too."

Xavier laughed heartily. "I'm not going to argue with you on that point. You'll be on Scott's Blue Team. Will that be all right?"

"Yes!" Jubilee gave Xavier a huge grin.


	25. Ambush

Chapter 24: Ambush

Jubilee looked at Logan. "Well, it looks like I did something right," she said. "I'm just not sure what." Logan came over with a glass of water himself and sat down at the table across from her. "I mean, I overreacted. I'm supposed to think before I look, not just go flying off the handle."

"That mighta been true when you were younger," Logan said dryly, "But I think Scott tellin' ya all them times that ya hadda control yerself kinda went a little too far. Yeah, ya haveta control it, but ya also gotta know when ta let it all out. There's a time for reactin', Jubes, an' there's a time fer thinkin'. The middle of a battle ain't the time ta do the thinkin'. React first, ask questions later. Better safe than sorry."

"But imagine if that had actually been the others in there!" Jubilee's eyes were wide. "I could have seriously injured someone!"

"Then it'd be their fault fer bein' somewhere they shouldn't," Logan said firmly. "We were in the middle of a battle simulation. Anybody who's a fool enough ta walk in the middle of a battle an' have benign intentions is someone lookin' ta get paffed, fer stupidity if nothin' else. You were dressed fer battle, you were already keyed up…an' yer reflexes just went into overdrive. That's what I been tryin' ta teach ya all these months. Not only how ta control and vary the force o' yer paffs, but also how ta think in a situation, when ta react, an' how to react. Jubes…I saw this when ya got in that fight with Creed…ya don't like fightin'. Ya ain't a fighter, an' ya hate killin' or causin' someone else pain. But if it comes down ta you or them, it's gotta be the other person, not you. You hesitated ta hit Creed with everythin' ya had, not wantin' ta kill him…an' ya got seriously injured yerself. You can't hesitate like that. If you do yer gonna get killed eventually. And from what ya told me…back in the Hulkster base…you got in a fight with a guard while you were escapin', an' then stopped ta resuscitate a fallen guard…and cause o' that ya didn't get away. You can't worry about a fallen enemy, Jubes, if yer lookin' at a hopeless situation, shoot an' run, an' regret it all later. Or ya won't be alive ta regret anything again." He finished, quietly, "An' I want ta see my pal again."

"Shoot first, ask questions later." Jubilee nodded firmly. "Especially in the middle of a fight. Got it." She stared at her water for a moment, then smiled. "I kicked ass in there, didn't I?"

Logan had to grin at that. "Yeah, ya did."

"And Charles liked it."

Logan nodded. "Yep."

"Cool." Jubilee grinned, finished her water, and said, "Come on. Let's go see how Bobby's little birthday prank's coming."

The party was in full swing by the time Jubilee and Logan walked in. Bobby had gone into the Danger Room after putting his usual program in, and been confronted with the redone simulation. He had reacted offensively, just as Jubilee had, and Hank stopped the program and brought up the lights only after Bobby had frozen all the holographic 'X-Men' in place. Then the real X-Men appeared in the doorway, yelled "Surprise!" and the party got underway. Hank carried Bobby out of the Danger Room, singing 'He's A Jolly Good Fellow' at the top of his considerable lungs, and they all retreated to the Rec Room, where a huge buffet was spread out on tables around the room. Emma deigned to give him a birthday kiss, (which Bobby accepted with a bright-pink face and Scott barely put up with) and Bobby blew out the candles and cut up his cake. They all partook of the cake eagerly. Jubilee even wheedled Logan into eating a little bit with her, and it finally ended with Bobby sitting on the floor in front of the X-Box with Hank to try and beat him in a new video game he'd gotten as a gift.

Beer and other alcoholic drinks had flowed plentifully after the party was underway, and by the time it let out Logan was badly in need of some fresh air. Not that alcohol really had any effect on his system, which handled drinks as easily as it handled paper cuts…but he just felt he needed air. He slipped away from the party, going to his room and changing into his black jeans, a shirt, and his jacket, and slipped out to the garage.

Only to find someone had beaten him there.

Jubilee sat astride her bike, helmet on, dressed in jeans and black jacket, idly juggling sparks in the air as she waited for him. He gaped at her foolishly for a while before realizing his mouth was open and closing it belatedly. "What…"

"I needed to get some air," Jubilee said easily, releasing her sparks to hang in the air above her head. "Got tired of watching Paige trying to match Warren drink for drink." She popped them one by one, watching them as they fizzled out in a show of brightly-colored sparks, and turned to Logan. "And I figured you might need some air, too, and you might as well accompany me." She revved her engine and smiled invitingly. "Are you coming?" Without waiting for an answer, she sped out of the garage.

Logan stared at her for a moment. "Minx," he said under his breath, revved his bike up, and followed her out of the garage, down the driveway, and out into the lane.

Thy played a game of bike tag, not pushing their bikes up to their top speed but using speed bumps, landmarks, and side streets to hide and seek. Their route took them down the roads through the Village and out along the main road that led into the city.

She didn't seem to have a destination in mind, and Logan found he was enjoying just cruising with her. They finally converged along Main, and just cruised side by side on their bikes, watching the sidewalks, alleys, and street signs speed by in a blur. Finally, a glance at Logan's watch showed the time to be almost midnight, and he inclined his head back in the mansion's general direction.

She nodded, smiling under the helmet, and he took the lead down a narrow alley toward a road that would get them back in the right direction. They zipped down that alley, and headed for another one, which Logan was expecting would be just as easy, when out of the shadows came a silvery, shining cable.

And it was sparking electricity.

He slammed on the brakes, but as fast as he'd been going, the bike couldn't stop in time to avoid those snaking electric cables. He hit them, and went flying into the alley headfirst, accompanied by his bike in a shriek of rending metal. His ears screamed in protest at the sound, even as his body screamed in protest at the raw abrasions down the side of his body as he scraped over the asphalt. Behind him, he heard Jubilee scream, and looked back just in time to see her throw herself backward off her bike in a gymnasts' back handspring, avoiding ending up as street pizza, as Logan had.

She raced forward, ignoring her bike in favor of tending to Logan. "Logan…are you all right?" she asked, helping him sit up and watching as his skin healed the (to him) minor scrape. "What was that? Where the hell did that come from?" She looked back, at the snaking electrical cables…and froze as the cables turned into hands. Silvery, metallic hands. Attached to silvery, metallic arms, to a body, to a head. And that head belonged to…

_Donald Pierce!_

It had been a long time since she and Logan had seen the ex-Reaver. Time which hadn't done him a lot of favors.

There wasn't a whole lot of resemblance to the man whom Jubilee had first seen in Australia crucifying her beloved Wolvie. This Donald Pierce resembled nothing so much as a huge, demented Terminator-like cyborg; just as angry, just as deadly, and damn near indestructible, from the way his entire body now seemed like it was made of adamantium. She stared openmouthed, still crouched beside Logan.

Logan hauled himself to his feet, still breathing hard, his heart pounding in his chest. Pierce. "What, ya lookin' fer a fight, Pierce?" he growled, popping his claws. His adamantium would slice through Pierce's adamantium…but the reverse was also true. At least, though, he could distract Pierce long enough for Jubilee to get away. The three of them had a history together, and it had ended badly enough in most clashes that Jubilee would now be considered a possible target by this adamantium monster. "Jubes, get out of here."

"Absolutely not," Jubilee said angrily, dropping into a fighting stance beside Logan. "I'm not leaving you here with that…thing. Come on, Wolvie, we kicked his ass once, we can do it again."

"'_We'_ are not kicking anyone's ass," Logan growled at her, never taking his eyes off the adamantium behemoth. He couldn't afford to be distracted right now; who knew what 'cybernetic enhancements' Donald Pierce had added to himself? "_You _are going home."

"_Not_." Jubilee eyed Pierce warily. "I am _not_ leaving you here. This is the same guy who crucified you, remember? I'm not leaving; I got my own score to settle with him."

There was no more time for talking, as Pierce strode forward, turning his 'arms' into those snaking, whipping electrical cables again. Logan danced backward, away from them; He didn't want to close with Pierce if he didn't have to. Just touching Pierce would expose him to all that electricity; and if that much electricity went coursing through a body like his, with all the adamantium bonded to his skeleton, he could be incapacitated. Leaving Jubilee to fight Pierce alone…

He was definitely not going to let that happen.

The electric cable/arm snaking toward Jubilee was repelled by a stream of her paffs. It withdrew, seemingly rethinking its attack strategy, and headed for Logan again.

Logan struck out at them with his claws, battering them backward. He wasn't however, leaving much of a dent in them, although they weren't having much effect on him. He needed to be able to inflict some lasting harm to Pierce…hopefully enough to get the other man to leave.

He raise his arm to strike out at Pierce's cable-arms again…and found himself frozen, as if by magic. He growled, but he was helpless as a cold, uncaring tendril of Telepathic thought slid into his mind. **Freeze,** the telepathic voice said, and Logan froze. Unwillingly, but his traitorous body wasn't going to be able to break the telepathic compulsion laid on him. He thrashed, howling in impotent fury in his own mind.

Jubilee, beside him, felt him stop moving. "Wolvie?" she frowned. "Wolvie, hey, what's wrong with you—"

**Grab her**, said that cold telepathic voice in Logan's mind, and he was helpless to resist that telepathic urging. He saw his arms reach out and grasp Jubilee firmly by her shoulders, trapping her, and his mind screamed in fury and frustration as Pierce's cybernetic hands touched her.

"Wolvie! What are you doing…let me go…Pierce…" Jubilee stared into Logan's eyes, and she must have seen a flicker of the helpless fury in them, because she looked at Pierce in anger. "Damn you! What have you done to him, let him go…!" She struggled, trying to free herself from Logan's grasp. "Let me go!"

Pierce grinned as he came up behind her, trapping Jubilee now between Logan and himself. 'His hands came up, hands now, not electrical cables, but she could still see the electrical sparks at his fingertips. She gave afrantic wriggle, but Logan's grip was too strong…and then Pierce touched her.

She went rigid under Logan's hands, her mouth opening in a scream as electricity tore through her body. She shook, screaming, her eyes wide, her voice agonized as she writhed. Pierce let his hands, his fingertips, roam over Jubilee's body, while Logan watched, a prisoner inside his own mind, watching his body hold Jubilee a captive for this torture. She was in such agony…he willed his hands to open, to release her, and wrap themselves around Pierce's throat, so temptingly close…but they remained closed in a steely grip around Jubilee's upper arms, a grip Logan knew was going to leave some brutally painful bruises on her skin. Rage washed through him…and he felt that psychic control over his body slip a tiny bit.

Just a fraction…but it was enough. He couldn't move his hands, his fingers, his arms…but his claws were available, and from the angle he was holding Jubilee, the caws wouldn't hurt her. They would, however, capture some of that electricity, channel it into his own body, and allow Jubilee to escape.

It worked. Electricity surged into his body via his claws, snaked along all the adamantium buried in his flesh, sizzled along his nerves, and set every neuron in his body on fire with pain. The mental presence invading his brain abruptly withdrew, the electricity having affected it too, and he found himself free. His hands opened, Jubilee fell out of them still screaming and twitching, and Pierce lost his contact with her body.

He'd only been subjected to a few seconds of electricity, and although it felt like an eternity, his body wasn't shaking as badly as Jubilee's was. He scooped her up as Pierce, caught by surprise, stood there trying to recoup his senses, and flung himself backward, into the abandoned warehouse behind them, and hurtled into its welcoming darkness, carrying Jubilee's unconscious body.


	26. Unexpected Ally

Chapter 25: Unexpected Ally

The darkness was inviting; the smell, Logan realized after a moment, wasn't. There had been a lot of homeless squatters here at one time, and the floor was littered with garbage as well as the remnants of metal factory equipment, now just massive, rusting hulks sitting on the floors. He heard Pierce's enraged shout, heard the sound of another voice, quieter and more indistinct, as the telepath who had been hiding in the alley's shadows said something back to Pierce. He gritted his teeth, fought the instinct to gag, and dove further into the darkness, feeling Jubilee's weight in his arms. He would find somewhere in here to hide her and then he'd return and pound Pierce to a pulp…

He stopped in front of what his nose told him was a foul, malodorous pile of garbage, and felt around in the darkness with his foot, clearing a space in the middle of the garbage. Even with his enhanced vision, it was visible only as a larger smudge on the floor; the darkness here was so absolute that he could barely see. It would be impossible for anyone to find Jubilee with normal senses; and the heat being given off by the microorganisms and bacteria in the pile of rotting garbage would help hide Jubilee's own faint body heat from infrared sensors; not that there was much of it, he could feel her body going cold with shock. There wasn't really anything he could do about that; he could hear Hank's measured tones in his mind saying that she basically needed to be kept warm. The garbage, while it didn't smell good, would do that.

She'd gotten hit with a much longer dose of electricity than he had; he'd been exposed to a few seconds. Jubilee had been subjected to at least a half-minute, if not more; courtesy of Pierce's innate sadistic tendencies. Logan laid Jubilee in the pile of garbage, carefully covering her with the rubbish, and then silently moved in the opposite direction. Pierce's eyes had been replaced with cybernetic units, and if it should be scanning the interior of the warehouse with heat sensors, he didn't want Pierce to connect Logan with the faint heat signature coming from the pile of garbage.

He attacked them from the opposite direction of the pile Jubilee was hidden in; springing on Pierce and the telepath, who, he now saw in the dim light from the streetlamp outside the door, was a thin, sullen-faced, wispy little man. He roared as he rushed them, claws springing out…

Pierce morphed his arms into those adamantium tentacles again, catching Logan's wrists with them. The telepath reached out at the same time and froze Logan again, and then that damn electricity arced into his arms. Logan screamed as his vision filled with blue sparks, that went on and on and on…until he slid into blackness. His last thought was of Jubilee; hoping they wouldn't find her, hoping she would escape.

Jubilee stirred, moaned.

Her entire body hurt, and she was lying on something so hard it hurt her back. As she tried to roll over, every muscle in her body protested so much she cried out involuntarily.

"Hey," said a calm, comforting voice. "Just move slowly, you'll be all right in a few minutes."

Jubilee jumped about a foot in the air. 'Who's there? Wolvie?" she asked, doubtfully. That didn't sound like Wolvie.

"Nope, sorry to disappoint you," said that voice again. Male, she decided. And young. The voice sounded somewhat familiar, she'd heard it before… "This is your friendly neighborhood…"

"Spider-Man!" Jubilee sat bolt upright, ignoring the protesting twinge in her muscles and back. "What are you doing here?"

"Saw all the activity over here, decided to check it out," said the voice. It was too dark for Jubilee to see clearly, but she could well imagine the familiar red and black web-masked face that went along with that voice. "Those goons left, complaining that they hadn't found who the 'boss' was looking for…and I decided to check it out. Saw you lying here in this garbage, figured I'd find out what happened."

"Wolvie…we were just cruising…and Pierce stopped us, knocked out the systems in our bikes with a burst of electric, and attacked us. Wolvie was just getting into it when he just stopped, and his eyes got all funny, and he grabbed me while Pierce electrocuted me…" She shuddered at the memory of the horrible pain. "It just kept going…I passed out…and now you're here."

"You got electrocuted? And survived? Whoa." A hand touched her arm. "I'd better get you to the hospital, then, miss. You need to get checked out, to see if you're okay."

"No!" With difficulty, Jubilee struggled to her shaky legs. 'I have to find Logan. I have to get him away. Help me, Spider-Man." She swallowed. "Peter."

"Hey. How do you know who I am?" The hand on her arm took a firmer grip and steered her out of the darkness and toward an open door at the far end of the warehouse. As soon as they stepped out, she heard Spider-Man suck in a breath.

"Jubilee. Of the X-Men." Jubilee smiled crookedly. "We've never formally met, but I've seen you at night, sometimes. And I've heard of you."

"I've heard of you, too," Peter Parker said. "People think you and Wolverine make quite the team. But you've grown!" he exclaimed, looking at her with an expression of admiration under his mask. "Last time I saw you with Wolverine, you were…" he stopped abruptly.

"Yeah," Jubilee smiled weakly. "I was a lot younger…and I smelled better," she said. "Thank you…for waking me up." She mounted her bike on shaky legs. "I should get back to the mansion, let everybody know what happened."

The mansion was quiet when she pulled up in front on her bike. The ride back had cleared her head a little, and she wasn't shaking quite so badly.

She ran into the house and slapped the intercom button "Scott!" She cried into it, not caring that everyone else would hear it. "Scramble a team, Wolvie and I were ambushed in an alley by Pierce, and he knocked me out and took him…"

She had hardly finished speaking when there was a clatter on the stairs, and Scott stood there in boxers, with Emma dressed in white lingerie beside him. Emma almost immediately wrinkled her nose. "Jubilee. You smell like garbage," she said.

Jubilee rolled her eyes but refrained from comment. "Come on. There's no time to lose. Pierce kidnapped Logan, we have to go get him!"

She started toward the lower levels, but Emma stopped her. "Wait a minute. Do we know where he is?"

Jubilee rolled her eyes again, in frustration. "This is Pierce we're talking about. He's gonna be at the Hellfire Club. Where else?" She clenched her fists. "Come, on, what are you waiting for?"

Scott shook his head as he started to descend the stairs. "Jubilee, we don't know where he's been taken. He may not be at the Hellfire Club; he could be anywhere in the city by now. We need to sit, to think this out and plan it…"

"To hell with all that!" Jubilee cried, tears springing to her eyes. "Wolvie's in trouble, I know where he is, let's go get him!"

"We need to plan." Scott insisted. "Emma, call the others, please? Ask them to gather in the War Room downstairs in ten minutes."

Emma sent out the telepathic call, but Jubilee, frustrated and angry, sped up the stairs past her. She fairly flew down the hall to her room, where she stripped off her filthy clothes, bundled herself into her black and red bodysuit, and ran out of her room…just as Scott and Emma were coming back up the stairs to get dressed. "Young lady, where do you think you're going?" Emma demanded sharply.

"I'm going to rescue Wolvie," Jubilee's chin rose defiantly.

"No you're not. Not on your own. It's too dangerous, you'll get hurt. Wait for us." Scott ordered.

Jubilee stared at them in disdain and contempt. "You want us to stop, and wait, and plan, and waste time when Pierce is out there possibly crucifying Logan again," Jubilee snapped. "Nuh-uh. Sorry. Not going to happen. If you're not going to leave with me now, I'm going alone."

"Jubilee, no," Emma's eyes went briefly unfocused. Jubilee felt the unmistakable sensation of a telepathic tendril entering her mind, and ruthlessly slammed down her barriers to it.

It was something they'd never, even Charles, been able to explain. If Jubilee was actively fighting it off, no one's telepathic probe could get through. When the X-Men had gone into hiding in Australia, Betsy had scanned the base for any other psychic signatures that would reveal the presence of anyone other than the X-Men in the base. She had found none, even though Jubilee _had_ been there. Since then, Jubilee had discovered that she could evade most telepathic probes (the sole exception being Jean or Charles at their fullest strength). As far as she knew, no one else could pick her up. And Emma, even with regular usage as a member of the team, had never been able to pick Jubilee up. Not even during all those times when Jubilee had snuck off the Academy grounds without permission. Emma had never caught her.

She slammed those doors in her mind now, and gave Emma a look that could only be described as 'nasty'. "Don't play with my head, Frosty," she said icily, coldly. "You're not going to stop me from going to get Logan." Her blue eyes, sparking with anger, pinned Scott with an angry glare. "You either."

"Jubilee, you can't go running off like this! You did all those impulsive things when you were younger; when will you grow up?!" Scott said, exasperated.

Jubilee lost her temper. "In case you haven't noticed, I _am_ grown," she said, her eyes glittering. "While you were busy using _her_ to get Jean off your mind, I was growing up. And Logan was helping. He's always been there for me, except when it was unavoidable; he loves me, like no one else here does. He lets me be myself, he doesn't expect me to be cold and controlled and stiff all the time. He accepts me for who I am, he trained me so that my strengths work with my powers. It's more than Frosty's ever done." She jerked her chin at Emma. "Or you. You cut me from the teams, sending me to live with Aunt Hope. Because of you not caring, I ended up in LA captured by the Church and tortured before they dropped me on the front lawn dead. When Warren's healing factor brought me back you all pretended like I wasn't here, that I was invisible and I didn't matter." Tears pricked her eyes. "Logan's the only one who really wanted me to talk, the only one who let me get everything off my chest. He's everything to me, he cares, and you don't. Get out of my way."

"Don't give me orders—" Scott started to say.

Jubilee had enough. Several glittering lines of her plasmoids appeared in the hallway in front of her at a wave of her hand; with another slight gesture, the glowing rainbow bands wrapped themselves around Scott and Emma, and pulled them back against the walls, clearing the hall for Jubilee's exit. As soon as the gap was sufficient, Jubilee was squeezing past, hurrying past them and down the hall, out the front door, and to her bike. Her face set and cold, she got on, pulled her helmet on, revved the engine up, and sped away.

She pushed her bike as fast as it would go, getting to the city in record time. She took the road downtown, and parked a block or so from the Hellfire club, then sprinted the short distance to the corner, where she could watch the entrance, study the building, and figure out how to get in. And once she did get in, how was she going to find Logan?

"He's still in there," came a voice behind her, and she spun, dropping into a fighter's crouch before she fully recognized the voice.

"Hey." She nodded to Spider-Man and retuned to her study of the building. "If you're going to tell me this is stupid and not to go in, save your breath," she said acidly. "Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber back at the mansion already gave me an earful."

Spider-Man dropped from his web strand to the sidewalk beside her and held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "I learned a long time ago not to get in a woman's way when she's determined," he said. Jubilee looked at him sharply, wondering if he was being flippant, but his inscrutable masked face looked back at her unflinchingly. And she had other things to worry about now, too. "What I did want to tell you is that during one of those brief times when the Club was disbanded, I used the building for a hideout. There is a way in up on the roof they haven't found yet. And the security cameras in the vent shaft are fixed; they won't see anything but empty shaft."

Jubilee turned to look at him. "You'll take me up there." It wasn't a question. Her plans had just clarified.

"Yes, I'll take you up there." He raised his hand, and a strand of webbing shot from his hand to the side of a building beside the Hellfire Club. As soon as he was sure the webbing was secure, he wrapped an arm around her waist and pushed off. "Going up!" he said.

Jubilee sucked in a breath. It wasn't the first time she'd found herself without solid ground under her feet, but traveling by Webslinger Express wasn't the same as being picked up by Rogue or Ororo or Warren. She was slightly breathless when he dropped her off on the roof of the Hellfire Club. "So…what's our plan?" he asked when she stood on her own two feet again.

"_I_ am going in alone." Jubilee emphasized the I. "_You'll_ stay here and keep an eye out for the X-Men. Not that I'm expecting them to come anytime before the next millennium," she snorted sarcastically, "But Cyke might surprise me by taking his thumb out of his mouth and seizing the initiative." Her tone indicated just how doubtful she was about _that_ happening.

"Is that wise?" Peter asked. "Going in there alone, I mean."

Jubilee blew out her breath. "I'm going to work my way into the heart of the club. Then I'll let myself be caught. They're going to want to know how I got in, and or course Pierce will want to gloat and parade my capture in front of Logan. So he'll take me to wherever he's holding Logan…and I'll release him and we'll escape together."

"Huh." Peter didn't sound optimistic about her plan's chances for success, but he knew better than to say it in front of Jubilee. "Well, good luck."

Just as she ducked into the narrow tunnel leading to the roof vent, he heard her say, "Thanks, Peter."


	27. The Hellfire Club

Chapter 26: The Hellfire Club

Jubilee paused and pressed her finger to her nose, trying desperately not to sneeze. To do so would alert the people in the room directly under her that she was there; and by her estimates, she was nowhere near the heart of the building yet.

There was the sound of a whip crack, and a breathless cry of pain. Jubilee peered down through the grille just in front of her, shaking her head at the sight of a slender brown-haired woman stretched out, shackled to an X-frame and being whipped. She couldn't understand why someone would want to put themselves in that position; bad enough that she herself had been on the receiving end of something like that involuntarily; why would someone want to do that deliberately? The sight of the whip and the sound of the woman's screams made her swallow hard as she remembered her own ordeal at the end of the Church of Humanity's whips. She turned away, fighting down the bile that rose in her throat. _Don't get sick here_, she admonished herself. _Just focus on getting Wolvie out. And I don't think Spider-Man would like you getting sick in his hideout tunnels._

She crawled past another security camera, noting the blinking ready light in the front of the camera. Spider-Man had 'fixed' the cameras by the simple expedient of taking a picture of the vent shaft's darkness and taping the picture directly to the front of the camera lens. No one would see her until she was ready to be seen.

Which was coming up. And she had another problem to worry about, and another subject to get her mind off the hellish memories being in this fetish club evoked. How were she and Logan going to escape? Donald Pierce was capable of doing some pretty brutal things to other people, and especially to Logan, who had escaped him time and time again. What if he had incapacitated Logan? She didn't have a watch on her wrist, but the growing fatigue in her body, held back but not completely banished by adrenaline, told her it had to be pretty late—or early, as it happened. She and Remy had stayed out until almost one o'clock the previous night; the way her body was feeling, it had to be at least that, or later. She'd only gotten six hours of sleep, and it was telling on her strength and focus.

She slid along the vent shafts, pondering her plan. She was going to be a bit handicapped if Logan wasn't in decent shape. She prayed Pierce hadn't hurt him too seriously as she peeked down another grille into another room, and looked into it to check her bearings.

This room was the meeting room for the Hellfire Club's Inner Circle. Furnished in black wood with heavy wine-colored draperies at the windows, matching carpet, and matching upholstery in the chairs, it was also decorated with various implements of torture along its walls. A depressing room, she thought. Too dark.

But this was where she wanted to go. And as luck would have it, two of the members, an Asian woman clad in a black leather bustier and a tall, imposing African man wearing nothing but a pair of 'Matrix'-inspired shiny black leather pants, boots, and matching trench coat. Totally cliché. Jubilee shook her head and sighed.

But if they were here, that meant armed guards would be just outside the door. And that was a risk she hadn't wanted to take However, she had no choice.

Carefully positioning herself above the flimsy metal grille with her knees and hands on the solid metal vent shaft walls around it, she carefully eased her right knee onto the grille. Then her left hand. Then, very carefully, her right knee.

And that was enough for the metal grille. It caved in under her weight, exactly as she'd planned, so they would think she had fallen by accident. She didn't want it to look like she wanted to get captured; she wanted to make them think they had captured her. If they thought that, they'd be more inclined to take her straight to Donald Pierce, and Wolvie. She didn't want to spend any time in those rooms being subjected to their torture, which was likely if they thought she had let herself be captured on purpose. If they didn't feel like they were in control, they might work her over before taking her to Donald.

There was a brief moment of weightlessness, a feeling of falling. She gathered her feet under her as Logan had taught her in the last few months of Danger Room sessions, and landed on the balls of her feet. Immediately dropping into a crouch, she started firing low-energy paffs into the room.

The woman and the man were taken totally by surprise. By the time they turned around, Jubilee had already paffed half the furniture in the room, leaving scorch marks; and as the man rose out of his chair and turned, Jubilee sent a slightly larger plasmoid at the chair, exploding it right under his rear. He yelled in surprise and fell forward, trying to protect his face from flying wooden splinters.

The woman reacted a little faster than the man, but still not as fast as she would have had to in order to gain the upper hand over Jubilee. She was wearing ridiculous high-heeled boots that didn't allow for a lot of swift movement, and as she turned and tottered toward Jubilee, Jubilee sent a low-energy paff toward her feet. The resulting explosion broke the heel from her shoe, and she toppled over. Her head hit a heavy carved desk leg, and she went out cold.

If Jubilee hadn't been watching the door and the other man so warily she would have smiled. She'd discovered early on that heels were a nuisance. All very well for Ororo and Rogue, who took to the air in a battle; or Jean, who almost always moved closer to Scott in the heat of a battle to take advantage of the width of his firing field. Heels slowed you down; Jubilee had designed her black and red suit with feet that had rubber soles, for gripping on slippery surfaces and increased flexibility. They were actually designed on the slippers she wore for her gymnastics practice. She had more maneuverability and no balance issues in heelless soft shoes.

The man yanked open a drawer and pulled out a gun. Jubilee threw up her hands as soon as she saw it, and formed a shield out of her plasmoids; a glittering wall of sparks that sprang into existence between her and him. He began to circle, as if to get around her; she moved with him.

He made a half-circle around the room, dodging her plasmoids as she hurled them randomly. How much longer would it take for the guards outside the room to come in and capture her? She didn't want to make it look too easy…but she also wanted to get to Logan, as fast as she possibly could. She kept one eye on the door and one eye on the man in front of her, while at the same time she tossed plasmoids at him. Some hit him; but they were too weak to do any major damage, and he shook them off.

Jubilee was starting to wonder if there weren't any guards on the other side of the door, and wondering if she shouldn't just dispatch the man and try to find Logan herself when a sudden agony blossomed behind her left shoulder.

She screamed and lost control of her plasmoid wall…or so it would seem to the man. As she went down, she saw two men each carrying guns, step out from a hidden door under some heavy burgundy drapery against one wall; and she smiled to herself through her pain. They had aimed for the bright red patch of fabric that covered the entire top of her shoulder, and the bullet had entered her back just above her shoulder blade. She could feel it, a burning, fiery pain, in the front of her chest, below her collarbone and above her first rib, in the flesh of her upper chest. It hurt, but not as bad as her screaming was making it out to be. Perfect. It looked like they had taken he down, incapacitated her, and if they thought that, they'd be more tempted to underestimate her.

The man in the black trench coat reached her at the same time as the two men holding guns. Jubilee lay on the floor, pulling the acting job of her life, curled up with tears streaming down her face and crying pathetically. "Hey, isn't this the girl Pierce's looking for?" said the man.

One of the guards hauled Jubilee upright by her shoulders, sending fresh stabs of pain through her wounded shoulder. Jubilee screamed again in feigned but still convincing agony. The blood soaking the back of her uniform helped that impression along some, too. She let that arm go limp, feeling the pain ease a little as the bullet no longer rubbed against tense muscle, and pretended she had lost the use of the arm, cradling it and crying helplessly.

The African cupped a hand under her chin and raised an eyebrow. "Looks like it," he rumbled, his voice a deep basso profundo that reminded Jubilee of Bishop. "Take her to Donald and his new pet, that other mutant. He'll want to see her. And after he's done, I'll ask him if we can have her. I like Asian girls." He slapped Jubilee's face, hard, snapping her head back on her neck. Dazed, Jubilee offered no resistance as they guard took her arms and twisted them up behind her back, making her cry out as he half-led, half dragged her from the room.

Donald dropped his arms, and Logan sagged against the adamantium shackles that bound him to the X-frame. His throat hurt from screaming, and pain from the electricity that sizzled along his nerves and crackled up and down his spine was making thought almost impossible. However, it wasn't the worst pain he'd ever felt, and he still managed to keep from Donald the information the cyborg wanted from him; Jubilee's location.

Some time ago (Logan's time sense was getting hazy) a guard had come back with the news that his shift was over, he'd brought his team back from the warehouse Logan had hidden Jubilee, and hadn't found the girl. Donald had flown into a rage, backhanding the man and demanding that he go back and look again…and when the man had assented and left, Donald turned to Logan, demanding to know where Logan had hidden Jubilee. Logan had grinned wolfishly, bared his teeth, and refused to say a word.

So Donald had commenced torturing him. Being a cyborg, he didn't tire like a human would; and the constant jolts of electricity, interspersed with periods where he would slice into Logan's skin with knives to force his healing factor to work, was draining Logan. He could only hope that Jubilee had escaped the warehouse and gone home, and the X-Men would come quickly. Jubilee had seen their captor was Donald Pierce; and Pierce's only known hideout in the city was here, at the Hellfire Club's headquarters. The X-Men would come straight here first.

There was a sudden scuffle from the hallway, and Donald stepped back from where he was slicing into the skin of Logan's chest with a thin, sharp-bladed scalpel to turn toward the door. Logan raised his head to see what the interruption was…and was hit with the smell of Jubilee's blood and pain as the door flew open and a guard shoved Jubilee into the room roughly, letting her sprawl to the floor.

"Is this the mutant you were looking for?" The guard asked Donald, and Donald replied affirmatively. It was all lost on Logan, who yanked against the adamantuim shackles binding him and roared in fury as she saw the blood darkening the fabric of Jubilee's distinctive black and red suit, and he saw her tear-streaked, bruised face. She turned her face up to his, waited until Pierce had turned to speak to the man at the door, and then gave him one slow, deliberate wink. In her 'injured' hand and arm, a faint shimmer of colored plasmoids danced briefly before flickering out as the door closed and Pierce turned his attention to Jubilee. And just like that, as soon as he looked at her, the mask of a helpless, frightened girl slipped back over her face.

Logan knew she had something up her sleeve; and the fact that she wore her black and red uniform spoke of a plan. She had obviously gone back to the mansion and brought back help, or she wouldn't be dressed like that; now he had to make Pierce think Jubilee really was incapacitated. They would both have to keep the cyborg occupied long enough for the cavalry to arrive.

So Logan rattled his chains, roared in fury, and threatened Pierce with death if he so much as laid a finger on Jubilee. Pierce smiled at that, then reached down and grabbed Jubilee's wounded arm, hauling her up by the bleeding limb. Jubilee screamed weakly, letting more tears fall from her eyes, pleasing the sadist in Pierce even more. "I've finally got you and Logan here," he gloated smugly. "How come you hang around him so much, huh? What does he have that would appeal to a little thing like you?" He shook her by the arm again, bringing more gasping sobs from Jubilee as she sagged in his hands.

He grabbed a handful of the front of her uniform, and pulled her upward until her face was only an inch or so from his. "Are you in pain? Hmm?" Something caught his eye then, and he reached for her chest. Logan sucked in a breath, sure that Donald was going to hurt Jubilee…but the cyborg only reached for the thin silver chain around Jubilee's neck and pulled the small silver charm out from under her shirt. "L," he read. "L…for Logan?" He started to yank on the thing, trying to pull it off Jubilee's neck.

The chain was stronger than it looked, and he tugged harder. As he did so, Logan saw Jubilee's injured left arm reach down to Pierce's belt and grab a small silver object, about the size of a credit card. Logan's heart leaped. That little device controlled the electronic locks on the shackles that held him captive. He saw Jubilee's thumb move to hit the switch…

Pierce dropped her as the necklace clasp gave way and the chain slid free, leaving a red welt on Jubilee's neck. She fell awkwardly, not to her feet, but to her knees, where she curled over and tucked the hand holding the control into her other one. Pierce ignored her for a moment, thinking her in too much pain to do anything…and underestimated Jubilee. As soon as she realized he wasn't looking at her, she whipped her hand out from under her body, pointed the device at Logan's X-frame, and pressed the button.

The shackles spring open, and Logan fell forward from it as Jubilee sprang to her feet. She dropped the device to the floor, aimed a small but intense paff at it, and it exploded in a shower of white sparks and a metallic ping of circuitry. She took two rapid steps back, taking her place at Logan's side, supporting him as he staggered. "You okay, Wolvie?" she said, never taking her eyes off Donald Pierce, who was looking at her as if he'd been struck by lightning.

"You…but you…"

"I'm not the same little girl you fought last time," Jubilee said, her voice firm. "You didn't think I could be taken out by a little shoulder wound, did you?" She laughed at him.

Pierce dropped the sliver charm and chain and took a step toward Jubilee. She brought her hand up, and a glittering 'bubble' of plasmoids appeared around herself and Logan. Pierce reached out to that bubble…and was rebuffed by a series of full-force plasmoid explosions.

"We're leaving." Jubilee said firmly. "And you're not stopping us."

The door burst open, and the room suddenly filled with people, guns drawn. Logan pulled himself upright with an effort, determined to keep those bullets from hitting Jubilee.

"We're leaving." Jubilee's eyes started glowing an eerie blue, and a rainbow of sparkles started dancing around her outline. She spoke flatly. "Get out of the way, Donald."

He didn't show any signs of moving. In fact, he took a step forward and morphed his adamantium arms into tentacles again, reaching for Jubilee. Logan growled and took a step forward, almost but not quite touching the plasmoid bubble.

Pierce touched it first.

And the bubble exploded.


	28. Escape

Chapter 27: Escape

More than exploded. Logan stared as the outer layers of plasmoids exploded and were quickly replaced by more sparks. Jubilee was feeding them in a continuous stream to the bubble, and expanding it the outer layer outward, further and further. Pierce was flung backward by the force of the blast when it reached him, flung backward into the x-frame on the wall that Pierce had had Logan restrained to. The frame and the wall exploded, and Donald kept hurtling backward, howling in rage and pain as he flew through the hallway wall, through several more walls, and finally out a window into the alley below.

The men with guns had fired at Jubilee and Logan, but large explosions of her plasmoids deflected the bullets. Finally, after the guard in the lead ran out of bullets, he signaled a retreat, and the guards ran. Jubilee's expanding bubble kept growing at a controlled rate, allowing people to escape ahead of the bubble before demolishing everything in its path, as Jubilee stood herself in the center of the circle, eyes glittering, sparks dancing around her figure.

As debris rained down around them, Jubilee, still glittering, wrapped both herself and Logan in a plasmoid bubble, keeping the rubble from crushing them both. Logan stared around him, hearing the shrieks of evacuating people and the sound of running feet, until everything went silent. Then, "Jubilee…"

"We're fine, Logan," Jubilee said in a voice that didn't sound the same as her usual tone. And a moment later, the top of the bubble exploded, heaving an astronomical amount of building rubble from above them, and Logan saw starry sky above him.

The glow from Jubilee's plasmoids faded, and Jubilee staggered suddenly, leaning up against him. "Logan?" Her voice was back to its normal tone. "I'm really tired…" He caught her, just as a step on the rubble above him caught his attention. He looked up, to see a red-masked face with black webbing lines looking down at him.

"You all right?" Spider-Man asked.

Jubilee looked up at him, tiredly, and gave him a lopsided smile. "Yeah, we're okay," she said. "I'm…really tired…"

Spider-Man looked at the rubble piled around him, and shook his head in dismay. "Whew. You two did all that?"

Logan wrapped his arms around Jubilee. "She did it. I just stood there."

"Gotta be careful around you!" Logan could hear the grin in Spidey's voice. "Come on. Let me help you out of there."

Logan used his claws to climb over the rubble and down the other side, marveling at the wreckage. Jubilee had demolished the building neatly; there was only one unusually clear space in the center of the wreckage where her plasmoid bubble had kept them safe. The rest of the Hellfire Club was going to take a long time to rebuild. He couldn't help wondering, when Emma saw the mess, would she still underestimate Jubilee's powers?

Spidey swung down into that cleared space and scooped Jubilee up in his arms, using his webbing to pull both himself and Jubilee up out of the crater. He put her down just a block around the corner, where she had parked her bike; when Logan joined them, he saw his own parked beside Jubilee's. "I took the liberty of bringing your bike here with hers," he said. "Figured you might need a ride home."

"A ride home?" Logan looked up at the sky, suddenly remembering Jubilee was supposed to be bringing help. There was no Blackbird hovering up there, which meant no cavalry. "Jubilee? Didn't you bring the others?"

Jubilee, leaning against her bike, shook her head wearily. "I went home to get changed. I tried to tell Scott that you were taken by Pierce to the Hellfire Club, but he didn't believe me. He said the Hellfire Club was too obvious, and he thought Pierce might have taken you somewhere else. He wanted to plan. I got upset with him, and I left." She gave Logan a wan smile. "I'm gonna get an earful from him and Emma when we get back."

"Not if I got anythin' ta say 'bout it," Logan muttered under his breath.

"Speaking of getting back…" Spider-Man pointed down the block. "If I'm not mistaken, here comes the police. I don't think you two want to be caught at the scene of a crime, do you?"

"Got a point there," Logan said, revving up his motorcycle. "Jubes? You okay ta ride?"

She nodded, wincing as she pulled her helmet on. "Gonna be really sore later…" she bit her lip as a fresh burst of pain traveled upwards from her shoulder as she pulled her helmet on, "But I'll make it home. As long as we go slow."

Logan dismounted, pulling off his jacket, tugging his shirt off, and wrapped it around Jubilee's shoulder. The wound was still bleeding. Sluggishly, but it was still bleeding. He wanted to get Hank to look at that as soon as he could.

"Come on. Let's go home."

Jubilee paused in the act of getting back on her bike, looking back wistfully at the pile of wreckage behind her. Logan blinked. "Jubes? What's wrong?"

"My necklace," Jubilee touched the hollow of her throat, where the silver dog tag charm had hung before Pierce had ripped it from her neck. "I suppose it's gone." Her finger touched the welt the chain had left on her neck…then she shrugged and swung her leg over the bike. "Let's go, Logan." The two bikes peeled away. Spider-Man looked after their retreating taillights thoughtfully…and then looked back at the rubble, which was now being surrounded by spectators, club evacuees, and emergency personnel.

The mansion was suspiciously quiet when they pulled up, but Logan ignored it. He and Jubes rode their bikes to the garage and parked them, and Logan caught Jubilee as she all but fell off the bike. "Y'okay?' he said quietly.

"Yeah," Jubilee leaned against him for just a moment, closing her eyes and relaxing…then she pushed herself off his chest, standing upright, and dropped her helmet over the back of her bike. "Come on. This shoulder's killing me."

The mansion was quiet because there was no one there! Logan felt the emptiness as soon as he and Jubilee walked in. Instead of going to try and find Hank, he led Jubilee straight to the lower levels, to the medlabs, and started to peel her bodysuit away from her shoulder to see how bad the wound was.

And that was where Xavier found them, several minutes later.

Logan looked up as the hoverchair whispered into the medlabs with its characteristic smell of motor oil and metal gears. "Hey, Chuck," he said, looking up briefly before returning to his task; cleaning the bloody skin around Jubilee's shoulder wound. Jubilee's eyes were squeezed shut, her teeth gritted in pain, but not a sound escaped her lips.

Xavier sucked in a breath at the sight of the blood-stained towels on the biobed beside Jubilee. "What happened?" he asked, coming further in.

"Jubilee took a bullet in the shoulder tryin' ta get me out," Logan growled.

"Annie should be doing that." Xavier reached out telepathically, contacting the human nurse and letting her know she was needed in the medlabs. Then he turned to Jubilee. "Jubilee, why didn't you wait for the others?"

Logan dropped the towel and turned to Xavier. "Don't start, Chuck," he said, his voice low and dangerous. "Jubes said she came back here to get a rescue team together and Cyke refused to take her at her word. She told him I was at the Hellfire Club…and he said that was too obvious, and he wanted to get everyone together and plan! Jubes ditched them all and came to get me. She tore the Hellfire Club apart to get us out of there; don't start on her." He stepped back as Annie came running into the medlabs, hair still tousled from sleep, wearing a hastily-pulled-on pair of sweatpants (Alex's, Logan identified by the smell and the way it sagged on her much slenderer frame) and gasped. She immediately started ransacking the cabinets and drawers for the necessary items, bringing them over to the biobed and getting to work on the bloody shoulder.

Logan held Jubilee's hands as he told Xavier what had happened. Jubilee got in a few words, but was mostly concerned with keeping herself under control through the removal of the bullet. By the time Annie got the small chunk of metal out of Jubilee's shoulder, Logan's shirt was damp with Jubilee's tears. Annie bandaged Jubilee's shoulder, gave her an injection of painkiller which the girl carefully looked away from, and only flinched a little as the needle entered her arm. "That's the best I can do," she said. "Hank really needs to take a look at this, though. I still feel lost with all this alien technology," She grumbled as she disposed of the bloodstained towels. "Now lie down, and get some sleep. You're exhausted and all your vitals are low." She turned to Logan, who was just about to slip out of the medlabs. "Uh uh. You, on the bed too. You went through just as much, and I want to monitor what that electricity might have done."

Logan looked ready to object…and Jubilee spoke quietly from her bed. "Please, Wolvie?"

Damn it, he never could resist that pleading tone in Jubilee's voice. Sighing, he slouched over to the biobed beside Jubilee's, and lay down on it. Annie pulled a blanket over him, and one over Jubilee, and dimmed the lights as she and Xavier left.

The door closed, and Logan started to drift into sleep. It had been a long day, and he was tired. Across the intervening space, Jubilee was already asleep, exhausted. He smiled as he heard a tiny snore. He'd take it easy on her. No morning runs for a day. Maybe two. It was an incredible thing she'd done, tearing apart a building; he hadn't dreamed she was capable of expending that much power. He'd have to adjust their Danger Room training sessions—

A sudden sound from the hallway caught his attention. He listened. Yes, that was the sound of many feet; Scott's in the lead, followed by the ladylike, mincing steps of Emma's high heels. He was about to get up and go out to the hallway, to confront Scott about how he'd treated Jubilee when she asked for help, when he heard Xavier speak.

"Scott. How did it go." It was more of a statement than a question.

"We didn't find them," Scott's voice sounded leaden.

Xavier's voice, when he spoke again, had an edge of steel in it. "Logan and Jubilee got home an hour ago. Annie took care of the bullet wound in Jubilee's shoulder, but Hank, perhaps there might be something you can do…tomorrow, when she wakes up." Logan heard Scott breathe a gusty sigh of relief, and feet started shuffling past the door. "Scott, Emma, please remain a moment. I'd like to speak to you privately." The sound of feet went on past the door.

Xavier knew Logan wasn't asleep yet. So did Emma. However, neither of them said anything to Scott. "Scott. If, say, Remy and Rogue were out on the town for a night, and Rogue came and told you he had been kidnapped and told you where he had been taken, and wanted to send a rescue team out, how would you react?"

Scott responded immediately, unthinkingly. "Get a team together and go, of course."

Logan could almost hear the jaws of Xavier's trap close on Scott's words. "So why is it different when Jubilee comes to you with the same tale? Why do you react differently?" Xavier's voice was suddenly hard.

"Because…because…" Scott floundered for a moment, startled by the accusation. "Jubilee's too hot-headed and impulsive. She reacts without thinking. She makes assumptions but doesn't think through them. She made a knee-jerk assumption that Pierce had taken Logan to the Hellfire Club, and rushed out with no plan for getting him out. I wanted to get everyone together, make plans, make sure Logan was in there before we went in there to get him."

"There's a time for caution, Scott," Xavier said, more gently but still with an edge in his voice. "This wasn't one of those times. And Jubilee, under Logan's tutelage, has gotten much better at thinking before reacting over this past winter while she was training with Logan. I think you're underestimating her abilities, and I'm not sure that would be a good thing to have happen on a team. I'm reassigning her to Ororo's team."

"Charles, it's not necessary—" Emma broke in, but Xavier interrupted her.

"Emma, your…inept handling of the students at the Academy led to their being unable to take their place as full-fledged team members when they first came to the mansion. As a result, they had to be cut from the regular teams, setting a precedent for underestimation that still continues. I will admit to taking part of the blame for that; I underestimated her psychological strength and her sense of morals when she joined up. Jean told me so, repeatedly; Ororo did as well. And Logan made his own notation in her file, announcing his intention to violate my orders and train her the way she should have been trained. I should have listened oto them, it might have saved her a lot of pain. But that's in the past, all I can do now is try to correct my mistakes.

"I will post the team assignments tomorrowfor everyone else…but I'll let you know ahead of time. Scott, you'll lead the Blue Team with Emma, Hank, Bobby, Warren, Rogue, and Remy. Ororo will lead the Gold Team, consisting of himself, Kurt, Lorna, Paige, Jonothon, Jubilee, and Logan. Alex will lead the Black Team with Bishop, Cain, Rachel, Sam, Jean-Paul, and Sage." Scott started to say something, but Xavier cut him off. "It is not open to discussion, Scott. Now you both must be tired, why don't you go on up to bed." It wasn't a request. Logan grinned as he heard Scott's footsteps heading up to the upper levels.

**Does this meet with your approval?** Xavier's mindvoice was warm with amusement.

_Yeah_, Logan smiled into the darkness of the medlabs. _Jubilee wasn't really happy on Scott's team, an' Paige wasn't real happy with the way Emma always got so patronizing. Too bad ya can't do away with her altogether._

Xavier's mindvoice took on a gentle tone of rebuke. **Logan, she has a valuable contribution to make to the team. And her presence makes Scott happy…**

_I know_, Logan said testily. _But I'll be honest, Chuck, I don't like her, an' she don't like me. I may_ _tolerate her on the team, but I don't like what she's done with the kids, especially Jubes, and the way she continues ta treat them like they're still students, still kids…it rubs Jubes the wrong way._

**Well, both of you will be on Ororo's team now. It should clear up any problems of that sort. She accepts people for who they are, not what she perceives them to be. Scott can't look at Jubilee without seeing the child she was. Ororo shouldn't have those problems; she's always been a fair assessor of Jubilee's capabilities****. And I'm sure you'll set her straight if she does**. Xavier sighed. **I'm off to make those lists before I go back to bed. Get some sleep, Logan. I'll see you in the morning. **


	29. Resolutions

Chapter 28: Resolutions

Logan awoke to the sound of softly humming machinery and the sound of Hank talking rather absent-mindedly to himself. "Not been taking care of herself…I told her…"

He sat up and looked over to Jubilee's biobed. She was sill sleeping, peacefully, in the same position he'd put her down in. Now Hank was carefully inserting an IV in her right arm.

"Whaddya mean, she hasn't been takin' care o' herself?" he asked, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed.

Hank turned around t the sound of Logan's voice and peered over the rim of his glasses. "Well, good morning, Logan…or should I say good afternoon, as it is now well into the p.m.?"

Logan gave the clock on the wall a startled glance. The hour hand was indeed well past the two. "She been asleep all this time?" he asked Hank, concerned.

"Most assuredly, since I have been present most of the morning," Hank said amiably. "Would you mind handing me that bag of glucose solution by your left elbow there?—Thank you," he said as Logan handed the requested item over. "As I was saying, she hasn't been taking proper care of herself. Her blood sugar is far too low, for her."

"This is a bad thing?" Logan frowned. "I thought lowerin' her blood sugar would be a good thing."

"For most people, yes," Hank said. "High blood sugar is usually indicative of pancreatic dysfunction and encroaching or progressive diabetes, but in Jubilee's case it's a necessity. Sugars are empty calories, providing no nutritive value but containing small bursts of energy when processed by her body. Energy which Jubilee uses to produce her pyrotechnic displays. With her blood sugar as low as it must have been before she tore the Hellfire Club apart, she was forced to draw on the reserves of energy inherent in her body fat to produce the energy required for such a dramatic display. It works, but it is an inefficient and dangerous method. She left herself with barely enough energy to carry out basic bodily functions such as breathing and muscular movement, which controls her heart. I spoke to her a long time ago, when she first came, about keeping her blood sugar up so that she could produce her plasmoids at a moment's notice. She hasn't been doing that."

Logan blinked, suddenly realizing why Jubilee had gotten so slim. He'd been building her muscle tone with the morning workouts, but by depriving her of sugary foods, he'd forced her to draw on her own body for the energy needed to power her plasmoids…which she'd also been forced to produce in increasing quantity. No wonder she looked so exhausted after the Danger Room sessions…and why she'd suddenly started sleeping more. He gulped. "'Fraid I'm gonna haveta take responsibility fer that, Hank," he said. "I cut a lot o' her sugar outta her diet when I started trainin' her."

Hank raised his eyebrow, but didn't comment for a while as he set the glucose solution to feed into Jubilee's arm. "This should rectify the situation, but when she awakens—" he went to a cabinet and took two Twinkies out of a box marked 'trash bags' under the sink. "Have her eat those. Strictly for medicinal purposes, you understand. Then take her upstairs for a full meal, complete with dessert." He hung the bag from a hook above the biobed. "She should wake up in about a half hour, but I don't want her getting up until the entire contents of that bag is inside her, all right? And no excitement." Logan nodded, pulling a chair over. Hank went over to the small refrigerator, in which he stored medicines that needed to be kept cool, and took out what looked like a hero sub wrapped in white deli paper. Logan suddenly found his mouth watering as he smelled roast beef, cheese, mayo, and all the other fixings he liked.

Hank smiled as he gave Logan the sub. "All yours, Logan. You need to eat after the events of yesterday as well. I will get something from upstairs." He turned and headed for the door, then turned as something occurred to him. "Logan. The next time you feel compelled to adjust a perfectly healthy person's daily nutritional consumption, consult with me first, all right?" His eyes twinkled, but Logan could tell Hank was serious.

"Okay, Hank. I promise." Logan grinned as Hank disappeared out the door, and settled in to eat his sub.

He was just finishing it up when he heard footsteps again, and they weren't Hank's. He sniffed, picking up the smell of Emma's White Diamonds mixed with Scott's Kenneth Cole Black, and wrinkled his nose. "If ya want Hank, he's upstairs," he said brusquely to the visitors.

"Uh, no," Emma said tentatively. "We wanted to talk to you."

Logan crumpled the deli paper in his hand, resisting the urge to throw it at Emma and Scott and say something extremely rude. He settled, instead, for "I don't wanna talk ta you."

Emma sighed, and crossed her arms. Logan heard the whisper of her white linen blazer against white leather, and rolled his eyes. He didn't turn around. "We wanted to apologize, Logan. For not taking Jubilee at her word when she came asking us to help her find you." Scott spoke first.

Logan did turn around at that. "And why didn't ya? I heard the conversation Chuck had with ya last night. He was right. If it was anybody else on the team you'd'a gone right out. But it was Jubes who brought the news, an' so ya hesitated."

Scott sighed and walked into the room from where he'd stood outside the doorway and grabbed a chair from the corner, intending to sit down. Just before his rear hit the chair,  Logan gave the chair a shove with his foot that pushed it back against the wall. Scott found himself in an undignified sprawl on the hard floor. "Hank said no excitement. So say what ya gotta say, an' leave." His tone was heavy with hostility. He didn't even crack a joke at Scott's expense.

Scott rose to his feet, cheeks as red as his glasses, and fidgeted. Logan raised an eyebrow. It had been a long time since he'd seen Boy Scout do that. "I guess…I just got used to seeing her as a child, a teenager, Logan, not as a young woman capable of joining a team and pulling her own weight as a real member. And her control over her powers has always been tenuous at best, and at worst…he shook his head. "Well, the Hellfire Club was an example of how bad her control could be."

Logan sprang out of his chair, eyes blazing, claws popping out. Emma tensed. Scott didn't move. Logan pressed his claws against Scott's throat, not breaking skin but dimpling it slightly, as he growled, "Don't criticize her till ya know what happened. What she did back there was as good an exercise o' control as I've ever seen in anybody. She protected me, an' herself, while she was doin' it…an' she controlled the spread o' the explosion so anyone inside the club could get out. She didn't even bury Pierce under the buildin', more' the pity. Everyone got out. No fatalities. And when she coulda let it go when the buildin' was gone, an' maybe demolished another half a city block, she restrained it, controlled it, pulled it all back in so nothin' in the area got damaged or harmed. Her control's gotten a lot better since I started workin' with her, an' don't ya dare try an' tell me she's a danger 'cause she can't control herself, 'cause I know she can. Not like you, blowin' roofs offa buildin's in battle like there ain't no tomorrow."

Scott flushed, but that was about the only reaction he could manage with Logan's claws that close to his throat. "I didn't know, Logan. It was part of the reason I came down here, so I could find out exactly what happened. And I'm sorry about that remark about her control."

Logan allowed two of his claws, the outer ones, retract, leaving a single sharp claw in the front still pressing against Scott's windpipe. "Ya used ta be her pal, Cyke, she used ta call ya her big brother. What happened?" he retracted the last claw and sat back down, staring at the somnolent figure on the biobed. She was still asleep, even though Hank had said she should wake up in a half hour. Was something wrong? It had been almost a full hour.

Scott sighed. "I don't know, Logan. She grew up, I guess; she doesn't need a big brother figure looking after her anymore. I guess…I was still trying to be her big brother, and only managed to drive her nuts in the bargain. What she needs now is a mentor, someone to guide her into becoming an active member of the team, and a mature young woman. Looks like you're what she needs right now." He reached out and laid a hand on Logan's shoulder, a faint smile hovering around his lips. "Better you than me, Logan."

Logan snorted in amusement, anger gone. "Yeah. She'd probably confuse you more." He allowed a grim smile to lighten his features. "Well, maybe when ya get yer head outta yer—"

"Logan," Scott warned.

"—ass, you'll realize she's all grown an' capable o' takin' care o' herself. Fer now, though, I think she'll be more comfortable on 'Ro's team."

Scott was silent for a moment. The hand fell from Logan's shoulder. "I guess you're right. But I'll miss having you on my team."

Logan shook his head. "We're a package deal, Scott. If ya can't handle her on yer team, ya don't get me either. Maybe one day we'll work on the same team again. For now, though, I think Jubes an' me are better off with Ororo."

Scott said nothing, simply nodded. Then he left, taking Emma's arm as he did and steered her out of the room, leaving behind only their scent.

Logan wrinkled his nose at the smell of Emma's perfume, and tried to hold back the sneeze…but it came anyway. It sounded loud in the quiet of the medlabs.

"Geez, Wolvie," came a voice, and a tissue was thrust in his hand. "Don't lose a lung there. It'll take a while to grow that back."

He looked up, startled, wiping his nose, and saw Jubilee lying back against the pillows, smiling gently. "At least it'll only be a lung," he snorted sarcastically. "You, on the other hand, you're enough ta make an ol' man's heart stop. Permanently. Wreckin' a buildin'! That's usually Cyke's job!"

Jubilee chuckled. "Well, since I'm so good at doing that, looks like I'll be wrecking buildings on Ororo's watch, not Scott's. I guess we gotta have one building-wrecker on each team."

Logan picked up the two Twinkies and handed them to her. "Hank said to eat those when you woke up."

Jubilee's eyes seemed to get bigger at the thought of the sugar those two confections contained. "But...is it okay with you?" she asked mischievously.

Logan tossed them at her with a mock groan. "Yeah, it's okay with me," he said, reaching forward to ruffle her hair. "Hank told me not ta go messin' around with what ya eat too much. Ya ain't been gettin' enough sugar, which is what that's for." He gestured to the IV in her arm.

Jubilee grimaced as she looked at the needle in her arm, then returned her attention to the Twinkies. Getting them open was something of a trick, with her injured shoulder giving a twinge every now and then, but with Logan's help she managed it. She bit into the first one, closed her eyes and gave him a blissful smile. "Mmmm…"

Logan had to laugh. "After ya finish that, there's a full meal waitin' fer ya up in the kitchen. Complete with dessert. Whatever ya want. An' no trainin' sessions fer ya for a couple o' days."

Jubilee grinned even wider. "A vacation! Cool." She sighed and sank back into the pillow, finishing off the Twinkies. After a moment, she opened one eye and said, "Logan? I didn't…hurt anyone…when I wrecked the Club, did I? I tried to go slow, but it was so hard…those rooms, with all those things in them…they reminded me of the Church Of Humanity's torture room, and I kept having flashbacks to the stuff that happened to me…it was hard to concentrate on slowing the reaction down with the memories of the hell I went through…"

"Jubes," Logan said gently, all levity gone. "I think I'd even have had a hard time controllin' myself if I was in yer shoes. And I admire yer grit; ya went inta hell ta get me, an' ya succeeded. Not a lot o' people woulda been able ta do that. Ya come a long way, an' I'm proud o' you."

Jubilee's head rose off the pillow, and she smiled slowly, a brilliant, wide smile he hadn't seen in a long time. "You're proud of me?"

He smiled back. "Yeah. Ya done good, Jubes."

She squealed happily and sat up, leaning forward to hug him. He wrapped his arms around her, smelling the faint odor of garbage in her hair (she obviously hadn't had a bath since yesterday.) "Love ya, Jubes—" he began.

"Love you too, Wolvie," she said.

"—but ya'd probably smell better after a bath."

Jubilee gave a giggle and sat back. "I'm sorry. I was so worried about getting to you…and then later, just getting some sleep…that I completely forgot about cleaning up. And my shoulder hurt so much…She looked at it. "Hmm. Doesn't hurt much now." She reached back, peeled up the corner of the bandage, and looked under it. "Hey. It's all healed. Thank God for Shi'ar medical equipment." She pulled up the rest of the bandage and held it up. "Wolvie…?"

He took the blood-stained bandage from her and dropped it into the wastebasket Hank kept in the corner for just that purpose. A quick glance at the IV bag showed it was empty, and he deftly removed the needle from Jubilee's arm, taped a piece of gauze over it, and tossed the spent bag and tubing into the same wastebasket. Then he gave Jubilee a hand off the biobed. "C'mon. You go up there fer a shower an' a change o' clothes, an' by the time ya get down, there'll be some grub waitin' fer ya. Anything in particular ya want?" As soon as he said that he knew what her answer was going to be.

"Sugar Bombs!" he said at the same time Jubilee said it. She laughed. He ruffled her hair and laughed too, and they left the medlabs together.

They were in the kitchen scrounging through the leftovers when the front doorbell rang. Since there didn't seem to be anyone else closer to the door at the moment, Jubilee got to it first and opened it.

"Peter!" she said, surprised. Peter Parker stood out there on the doorstep, smiling at her. "What brings you here?"

With a flourish, he brought a bundle of flowers out from behind his back and presented them to her. 'Get well soon', said the card on the stem of the flowers. Jubilee giggled as she sniffed them experimentally. "They're lovely, Peter. " She held the door open. "Want to come in?"

Peter eyed Logan, who had appeared at the end of the hall behind Jubilee, quietly popping the first set of claws, and shook his head. "Uh, no, just came by to give you the flowers and this," he said, digging into his jacket pocket for a small box. Jubilee took it curiously, putting the flowers on the hall table and opening the box. "My necklace!" she exclaimed. "You found it!"

"I stumbled over it when I was poking around the rubble," he said, shrugging. But the sparkle in his eye belied the seeming casualness of the statement. "The chain got a little crushed; the links collapsed under the weight of a brick that fell on it. I took the liberty of replacing it. I didn't think you'd mind."

Jubilee looked stunned. "My God, Peter…how do I pay you back for this?"

He grinned sheepishly, and reached into his other jacket pocket. "Uh, well, funny you should mention that, but I was supposed to go out to this movie tonight with a friend, and he backed out at the last minute, so I have an extra ticket, and I was wondering if maybe you'd care to…?" he let his voice trail off.

Jubilee grinned, widely, happily. "Oh, yes. I'd love to…as long as my teacher doesn't have other plans.." she turned toward the kitchen. "Wolvie? Do you have anything planned for tonight?"

Logan leaned against the doorframe. "Ya wanna go out t'night, Jubes?" he was casually inspecting his claws, pretending to be cleaning a spot off the edge of a blade. "With radioactive spider-boy here?"

Peter looked at Logan warily, keeping one eye on the extruded claws and one eye on Logan himself, alert to any sudden moves that might become a threat. "Uh, yeah, I'd like to take her out tonight."

"What time's the movie?"

Jubilee looked at the ticket quickly, but Peter answered first. "Seven o'clock."

"So she's gonna be home by nine."

"Uh, well…" Peter looked even more apprehensive as Logan glared at him. "I was sort of thinking of taking her to dinner afterward at the Kiss Café. I wasn't planning on bringing her back until maybe eleven or twelve."

"It don't take three hours ta eat."

Peter was looking even more uncertain now. "Uh, well…"

Logan popped his second set of claws. "She's my partner. I expect you're going to take care of her. Treat her right, or…" he waved his fist in front of Peter, who nodded vigorously.

"Take care of her. Yes I will, I swear I will. See you tonight, Jubilee…" and he was gone, heading down the drive to where his car waited, trying not to look as though he was running.

Jubilee turned to Logan and swatted him. "Logan!"

"What?" he looked back at her, all innocence.

"I'm never going to be able to date properly if you scare off all my dates!"

"Just wanna make sure they don't hurt ya, Jubes," he said quietly, retracting his claws and picking up the flowers, looking at the tag seriously. "You been hurt enough fer any two girls yer age. I haveta take care o' you…so you can keep takin' care o' me." Now he did smile.

Jubilee grinned at him, throwing an arm across his shoulders and they headed back to the kitchen. "So here's the deal. You take care of me, and I'll take care of you. How's that sound?"

"Great," Logan said.

"One condition," Jubilee stopped walking. Logan eyed her suspiciously. "You stop scaring off my dates!"

Logan just laughed.

END

Yeeehaaa!

FINALLY got to the end of this story. Now, I hope no little birdies come twittering in my ear with more ideas to expand this story.

Well, if they do, I'll just write another one.

Which will make all of you out there very happy, I bet.

I've absolutely enjoyed writing this story, and I hope you all enjoyed reading it too. I'm going to be entering this in the X-Day competition, in the Novellas category, instead of 'Secrets And Shadows'. That one, in case some of you hadn't read it yet, is rated R, for some graphic stuff, and the rules for X-Day say nothing over an R rating will be allowed this year. Of course, there will be some who want to try and slip under the bar, but the contest coordinators will catch those, as they usually do.

I originally posted this under a G rating, but the chapters dealing with Wolvie and Jubes' sojourn up at the cabin and the scenes inside the Hellfire Club are a little iffy, so depending on the feedback I receive, I'll be upgrading it to a PG 13, which, I think, would be more appropriate. If anybody has any comments about that, I'd welcome them.

Acknowledgements:

Ladybugg: Love the feedback, the reviews, and thanks so much for your vote in X-Day in advance. Even if you read the other submissions and decide mine isn't the best, I'll still respect your opinion, and your honesty!

Megalictis: The next time I get ideas and don't have time to pursue them, I'll send my plot bunnies over to see your plot bunnies, and we can watch them multiply like rabbits together! grin But really, thanks for the Spidey idea. You weren't alone; look at the reviews I got! People like the idea of a Spidey /Jubes adventure. Gives me some ideas…

Ellie: What can I say? You've been with me almost since Story 1, and I am extremely grateful for all feedback.

Felidae, Dionne: Hopefully I'll hear from you guys at some point. I miss you! I miss your sense of humor and your comments and I miss talking to you!

DevDev: I hope you liked it all. There were some veiled references to the alternate 18 in succeeding chapters, but I tried to keep it down because 1) I really didn't have time to write another altchap and 2) because I didn't want to write an alternate ending! But I hope you liked it anyway!

I have some projects right now I really have to work on and get done, one for a writing contest that carries a $75 prize, so I'll be busy with that for a while (it has nothing to do with X-Men—don't ask! you're not going to like the answer.) Also, news is that X-Day has been postponed till January due to site problems. So that gives me some extra time to review my submissions list. I hope some of you reading this now will go and vote later. Not just for me. X-Day draws a lot of people in, both amateurs and professional writers, and the gathering of talent really is worth seeing. So I hope to see you there!---Jaenelle


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